


Xander and the Marshmallow Fluff Reality

by darklyndsea



Series: SWCI [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher, various minor background crossovers
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Reality, BAMF Xander Harris, Crossover, Gen, NaNoWriMo, Xander's opinions are not typical of his home reality, deaging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 100,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklyndsea/pseuds/darklyndsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander finds himself a teenager again, in a world so devoid of danger that he doesn't know what do do with himself. Well, at least working as a magical consultant for the Mob will kill some time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote 100k for NaNoWriMo 2012 . . . and then I realized that I was less than 1/3 through the plot, and that I wasn't happy with the POV (among other things) and couldn't continue until I rewrote what I'd already written, so it ended up getting abandoned. I'm kind of sad about that; the worldbuilding was extensive, and there are actually reasons for all of Xander's weird opinions and overpowered abilities that I didn't manage to convey.

This wasn't the first portal Xander had gone through. It was a hazard of the job: sometimes you went through portals, for one reason or another, just like sometimes you got turned into a woman or a puppy or lost an eye. Nobody had ever said it was an easy job, and Xander had personally experienced most of the dangers of it. So he had ample experience to judge the portal on.

It was a given that the portal would be weird; there was only one Key, in his universe or any other, and the only person in living memory who had gone through a Key portal was dead, but in Xander's experience every portal was different, with the rarer the type of portal, the weirder the trip through the portal. A one of a kind portal? Yeah, there was no chance that that wasn't going to be a strange trip even by Xander's standards. But this went beyond what he expected. It seemed to take years and seconds at the same time. Nothing was still, and wherever anything moved it moved in nauseating ways—not that there was anything to move. And the feel of the thing to the unnamed sixth sense, crawling through his mind and body and leaving behind the tiniest of traces...he was sure he threw up, even if he was currently all energy and no physicality, and he'd spent nearly 300 years seeing the worst that demons and humans could come up with.

That portal was _wrong_. Not Evil, not dark magic of any sort, but still as wrong as anything he'd ever had the displeasure to feel. He didn't envy the Morals team for having to take that job; there was only one way it was going to end, and he'd put good money on the portal being opened by an innocent who didn't know a damned thing about what he was doing, an innocent driven out of his mind, made unable to stop himself by some sort of horrible circumstances beyond his control. He wished to hell his mind hadn't been able to come up with as many disturbingly likely scenarios as it did.

Goddess, he'd all but ordered a hit on Dawn's son—there was no doubt that he was responsible. Dawn's son who was likely to be as close to an innocent as he'd ever encountered, not out wreaking havoc because he could. He was the Key, had been since Dawn's death even if his bastard of a father never would have told him; if he'd actually wanted to wreak havoc there wouldn't be a planet left. Maybe not even a universe; the Monks hadn't been specific, and that wasn't the kind of thing even the crazier R&D geeks were about to test out. Random portals, even if there had been enough of them to deplete SWCI's stash of portal-closing crystals, told him that they weren't deliberate. And considering everything Dawn had gone through in her life, even to the point of _wanting_ to open a portal a couple of times, the kid wasn't likely to be in anything like a pretty situation...or one he could recover from, even if they didn't have to worry about the portals. Xander had seen too many broken people to blindly believe that every situation was able to be recovered from. Some people were weaker, others were tougher, but anybody could be broken to the point that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't do a damn thing to make them a bit better, no matter how hard they tried.

He was damned sorry that it had come to this, that he hadn't kept a closer eye on that bastard when he ran off with Dawn's kid and that he hadn't nipped this situation in the bud, but the situation had come this far and there wasn't a thing he or anybody else could do about it other than end this mess the only way it can be ended. If he could, he'd be the one to pull the trigger, the one to answer to Dawn in the afterlife (Heaven is real, but so is Hell, and he's not sure how much blood on his hands can be canceled out by the dust on them, but either way he knows he'll answer to Dawn for that, no matter who pulls the trigger). It wouldn't be the first time he's had to kill, not the first time he's had to kill an innocent, not even the first time he's had to kill someone who's family in all but blood.

There wasn't much that made him feel old, despite his age. The way his bones ached when it rained, in a way completely unrelated to injuries. Squinting at writing, trying to put off getting a reading monocle for just a bit longer. And ordering innocents to be killed. It was a short list; age was just a number, after all, and he was still whole enough in body and mind to do what needed to be done, so he didn't have many reasons to feel old. The first two items on his list would eventually increase until he wasn't able to ignore them, but they had only started recently. The last, though, being responsible for the murder of innocents (no matter how justified their deaths), that was nothing new. He'd lived with _that_ for damned near his entire life, and even when he'd been in his twenties, just a baby compared to now, it had still made him feel old. These days, it made him feel practically ancient.

But ancient or not (and by the standards of his chosen profession, he was beyond ancient), Xander wasn't dead yet, and as long as he could keep going on, he would. He wouldn't even know _how_ to stop. It worried him, every time he was too sleep-deprived to think straight, that one day he'd die and he still wouldn't stop, would continue on with his life even when he should be dead and gone off to whatever afterlife he'd earned himself. He wasn't an Immortal and never would be, and the Library had found nothing to suggest that it was even possible, at least without black magic, but there was no turning off that part of his brain that worried about the possibility. So what if it was unprecedented? His life was full of unprecedented occurrences and ones that _set_ the precedent. Why not his death as well?

He suspected he wouldn't be thinking along these lines at all if the portal wasn't messing with his head like it was—all the mental shields in the world wouldn't keep it out; it had torn through his like they were made of toilet paper. If he fell into the trap of starting to think about everything horrible that had ever happened in his life, without being drunk while he thought, he might not be able to stop. He'd lived his entire life on what was essentially the front lines of a never-ending war, with another few short-lived wars thrown in there for variety. Anything horrible that could happen, had happened at least once in his life. Well, they'd managed to hold back every apocalypse by the skin of their teeth, but everything short of that had happened. He didn't have _time_ to contemplate his life, not if he wanted to actually live it.

After that eternity in an instant (or was it an instant in eternity?), Xander finally tumbled out the other end of the portal. He was unable to fall properly, and his leg sent fresh waves of agony radiating through his body as he hit it on the pavement as he landed. He lost his grip on his cane and it skittered out of his grasp, but at least he had it with him; he hadn't dropped it in the portal, or lost everything he had on himself—it was always awkward to pop out of a portal without a stitch of clothing on, so he was definitely glad of that, even disregarding how twitchy it made him whenever he was forced to go unarmed.

After so long in the midst of danger, Xander's danger sense was developed enough to trust that it knew what it was doing when it didn't go off, so he allowed himself a bit of extra time to recover before starting the long and painful process of getting up from the ground. It wasn't often that he could allow himself that luxury; all too often he wound up on the ground because he'd been knocked down in a fight, and spending longer than absolutely necessary on the ground during a fight wasn't generally a good idea even if he'd made sure to learn how to fight when he couldn't get up, because these days he took too long standing up to even try it during a battle if he didn't have backup.

With the aid of his cane and the wall, he managed to finally pull himself upright and look around. He was in an alley of some sort, generic enough that he couldn't say much about it other than that it wasn't part of his Cleveland. Since the War, when it had been the only thing to keep them from starving, every available space in Cleveland had been filled with potted plants, whatever would grow and feed people. Other cities didn't have that; even at the worst of the War, they hadn't had to worry as much about food. Cleveland had been all alone, surrounded by factions that were willing to do anything short of outright attacking Cleveland to keep their enemies from gaining control of it. Cleveland hadn't been able to rely on the food shipped in from outside the city, at least not as much as they had relied on it before the War: their supply lines might be cut off at any moment, and they had all known it. So they had filled Cleveland with the closest things to gardens that could be managed in the city. They'd filled empty lots and every square foot of garden and lawn with vegetable gardens, lined the streets and the roofs with potted plants. It hadn't been enough to make them completely self-sufficient, of course, but it was enough that they didn't have to worry too much about their food supplies. And once the War had ended, everybody had gotten so used to growing their own food, to having fresh vegetables growing everywhere around them, that they hadn't gotten rid of the gardens and potted plants. Any alley in Cleveland would have been lined with plants, not solid concrete like this one was. But other than that, Xander didn't know where he was.

No other city was as distinctive in its alleyways as Cleveland was; this could be any city in his world, or any other. Except for some soggy unreadable newspapers that would tell Xander nothing because he'd never paid any attention to the normal world if he wasn't forced to, there was absolutely nothing in this alley to tell him where or when he was. He would have to leave the alley if he wanted any answers. He'd have to leave eventually anyway, but it would have been nice to know at least something about where he'd found himself before he wandered out into public.

Then again, maybe he wouldn't have to leave the alley to find out. Not far away, Xander heard the crack of gunfire, and above that the shrill three note hunting call of a sssrii'a demon, both heading his way. Of course, there was always the chance that they'd head down some other alley, avoid him altogether, but this was _his_ life, so he wasn't betting on that. And even if they did, guns weren't going to do a thing to a sssrii'a other than piss it off, and he wasn't about to let some poor idiots die just because they didn't know to use a blade. From a civilian's perspective, not using a blade probably even made sense, with how acidic all of a sssrii'a's bodily fluids were.

Two men ran around the corner. They weren't panicking, but making a retreat until they could either lose the sssrii'a or figure out how to kill it. The cry sounded again, and Xander revised that thought: they were making a retreat until they could lose the sssrii'a or kill _her_. A nesting mother separated from her young...even if they weren't responsible for it (and there was a good chance that she'd fallen into this world as a side effect of the portal Xander had come through), she'd clearly decided that they were to blame, and she'd never let them go now.

Her prey looked like they were at least competent with fully mundane forms of combat. They held their guns with competence, at least, and from what Xander could see their shots were hitting the sssrii'a's small false vulnerable spots. Muggles didn't do much physical combat even in their militaries, so he didn't hold out hope for much on that front, but at least both of them looked like they were in decent enough shape, so they might not be complete failures with blades.

"Run!" the smaller man shouted when he saw Xander.

Xander rolled his eye and ignored him. "Bullets will just piss her off," he shouted back, drawing his sword from his cane. "You guys need knives?"

At least he was dealing with people who were competent. No argument, no repeated attempts to get him out of the combat zone, just the split-second judgment that he knew what he was talking about, and both of them holstered their guns and drew knives. A bit small for his taste, maybe, but...civilians, no matter how competent they were. Dealing with vanilla humans, things like reach and leverage just weren't as important as they were when dealing with things that were faster and stronger and could sometimes throw you across the room with what passed for their mind. They weren't likely to be used to fighting at such close range, and probably didn't have the experience fighting with all kinds of weapons that SWCI instilled in everybody associated with it; even if their knives were kind of pathetic to his eye, it was probably best to leave them with the weapons they were most used to rather than for them to fight with a superior but unfamiliar weapon.

Instead, he said something in one of the languages demons commonly used. It wasn't quite a trade language—most of the beings who used that particular language didn't have much interest in trade—but it worked well enough for starting bar fights, or whatever the local equivalent was. Swearing in it was almost an art form, like poetry if poetry sounded like you were gargling razor blades. Xander was an acknowledged master of that art, for values of 'acknowledged master' that included starting a fight every time he chose to use the language. Hell, he'd once gotten some pacifistic demons to attack him by using that language (they'd been untouchable unless they attacked first, and they'd been doing some things that he'd never tolerate being done to his people).

The insult worked like a charm, and the sssrii'a practically dismissed the muggles from her mind, turning the full force of its attention and rage on Xander. Good: the muggles would be fine unless he fucked up and got himself killed, and might be able to get a couple of good shots in while she was distracted, and Xander would be able to fight it more effectively this way than if he had to chase after it. He wasn't exactly fast enough to be effective at chasing anything, especially not anything as fast as a sssrii'a.

The sssrii'a approached slowly. There'd been some speculation a few years back that sssrii'a fed partially on fear, since they were fast enough that no ordinary human should be able to kill one, and there had been a few kills over the years. There'd never been much evidence one way or another because there was always the chance that a few humans had gotten lucky, but seeing this stalking behavior, Xander figured the theory was probably correct. There was no reason for her to move that slowly, especially with as pissed off as she was. No, the only purpose of that was to make her prey even more terrified than it already was.

From what Xander could remember of the days before his fear reflex burnt out completely, and the reactions of people he knew still felt fear, the sssrii'a would be terrifying. It was larger than most demons, the size of a small elephant, with foot-long spikes covering it like it was a porcupine. Sharp claws dug into the concrete as if it was sand. From a mouth filled with teeth that looked as sharp as he kept his knives, acid saliva dripped out, rapidly eating away at the concrete that hadn't been destroyed by its claws. It hadn't started bleeding yet, but he knew that its blood was even worse.

Actually, that might be a problem. Hopefully the muggles were smart enough to take care of any acid burns they got, but they might not be prepared for the acid blood. And, being muggles, their knives were unlikely to be protected like his were. Hopefully they wouldn't be _too_ unprepared for it, though, because there was no time to do anything about it—the sssrii'a had finally realized that she wouldn't be able to snack on his fear and attacked.

The sssrii'a's head snaked out, mouth open wide as if she thought she could just eat him in one bite, with no resistance. He countered it with a stroke of his sword, opening a gash up the side of her face from her mouth almost to her eye. It would have _been_ her ye, but her reflexes were fast enough that she'd avoided so major an injury. Her blood dripped on the ground, eating away at the pavement faster than her saliva and hopefully serving as a warning to the muggles. Then again, maybe not; in Xander's line of work it was necessary to pay attention to little details like that, but from what he'd seen, paying attention to details wasn't something a lot of muggles did.

Well, either way, there was nothing he could do about it now. The sssrii'a was too fast to waste his breath on warnings, especially since judging by the markings on her scales, she was old enough to have learned to be crafty, how to really fight and not just kill things that didn't know how to fight back. She even had a couple of scars, and sssrii'a had hides so tough that it was normally an all-or-nothing proposition to take one on: the sssrii'a tended to come out of fights either dead or, more likely, completely unharmed. For one to have scars spoke to it having taken on at least one tough enemy...and having survived the fight. She wasn't the kind of demon he liked fighting with nothing more than a couple of muggles for backup.

But then again, maybe these muggles were more competent than most of the ones he'd had the displeasure of encountering in the past. The sssrii'a shrieked as the redhead planted his knife deep in one of her true weak spots, and threw him across the alley with a sweep of her tail. Hopefully he wasn't too injured; he'd been smart enough to find a true weak spot and good enough to actually wound her before she noticed him. This world, whichever one it was, didn't deserve to lose someone as competent as he was. From what he could see of the other one, he wasn't doing too terribly either. But as good of a job as the redhead had done, it made it all the more important to finish this fight quickly: a normal human gets thrown into a wall that hard, and he's out of the fight, so they're down to two fighters (and good luck getting backup, since these guys clearly didn't fight demons on a regular basis). And on top of that, the sssrii'a's pissed off enough that it's not playing anymore. Even before his leg got fucked up, he wasn't fast enough to keep up with a sssrii'a going full speed.

He w***ed he had more options, but he knew that this was it. His resources were himself, two muggles, and what they had on them when none of them had been expecting to be attacked (well, he couldn't read the muggles' minds to be absolutely certain about them, but it seemed like a fairly safe assumption to make). That was it, as far as resources went. He didn't have a choice, no matter how much he hated to implement Plan M.

There wasn't time to pull off Plan M properly, but then when was there ever? He wouldn't ever implement Plan M unless he was forced to, and the only place he didn't have options at all times was the battlefield. As much as Plan M without proper preparation made some people twitch, it was what he was used to. He'd gotten a thorough enough education that he could properly prepare if he had the time, but he'd never had a problem with Plan M because he hadn't prepared, so he didn't really see the point, at least for himself. Some people seemed to like having things just so, everything planned out to the slightest detail, and that was fine for them as long as they didn't expect the rest of the world to act according to their plan. But he was a fly by the seat of his pants kind of a guy: in his book, if it worked, was it really necessary to add extra steps to it? He'd decided that, for Plan M, those extra steps weren't strictly necessary if you knew what you were doing. Not that he'd ever tell that to the kids just learning the basics. After all, _they_ didn't know what they were doing yet.

Hoping that the remaining muggle could hold the sssrii'a off for a few seconds by himself, Xander stepped back out of the fight. Marshalling his inner resources, he almost reached out to get a bit of extra power from the earth, but managed to stop himself in time. This was almost certainly not his world, and trying to borrow energy from a world that you hadn't introduced yourself to yet? That wasn't something he wanted to try in the middle of a fight. It'd be harder to do it on his own, but the sssrii'a wasn't so tough that he couldn't kill her on his own. Better to play it safe, in this case. Sssrii'a had their own ability to travel across realities, but if she had come here by the same means as he had, he wouldn't bet that it would be possible for her to actually get back to her reality, and a pissed off sssrii'a wandering around was about the last thing this planet needed, especially since he didn't even know if there was anybody here who even knew about the supernatural, much less about sssrii'a themselves.

No, introducing himself to the earth would have to wait, which just made it all the more important that he get it right the first time. He'd marinated in the energies of various Hellmouths for long enough that he wouldn't be wiped out entirely by a first attempt (Hellmouth exposure was only one of the factors affecting magic stores, but he wasn't a regular enough practitioner for that to have much influence on him, and he wouldn't credit his parents with doing something as useful as passing the good genes down to him), but if he needed to take a second shot he wouldn't be able to do it with only his own energy. The only problem was, he didn't know what would be effective. _He'd_ certainly never personally faced a sssrii'a; they were ridiculously rare, even considering the fact that they couldn't live for long in any atmosphere humans could live in, and despite living solely on a diet of humans. He supposed they must have other realities that they found their food in, ones that were less capable of defending themselves against sssrii'a or that were simply easier to open portals to, because in all the time he'd been involved in the demon-hunting business, there hadn't been a single sssrii'a found on his Earth. And although he knew of their existence, and a few facts about them, the records had all, necessarily, been from before SWCI was founded. And records from before SWCI were, well, a bit lacking. To find information on one demon, you had to go to half a dozen different sources, written in a variety of languages. No one source would have everything you needed to know, even if you'd think that it was information that should be mentioned everywhere that demon was mentioned. It was like that story about the three blind men and the elephant: you had to hope that you could add together all those parts and come up with something logical...and if you'd never seen an elephant before, chances were that you weren't going to guess that that was what the blind men were feeling.

There were two possibilities for what would work here. Either the acid was not a Principal Part of a sssrii'a's being, in which case a spell to neutralize it would essentially poison the sssrii'a, or it _was_ , and trying to neutralize the acid would have no appreciable effect other than pissing her off. In which case, according to Tilly's second law of magic his best bet would be electricity. Call that his current (pun so not intended) Plan B, because he tended to have trouble controlling lightning, so he wasn't going to try to control it without a bit of extra power to force it into submission.

Neutralizing acid was a simple enough proposition if it had enough magic in it, and the threshold for life was above that level. The only things that would be any sort of difficulty for him doing that spell were the size of the sssrii'a, since it took more to neutralize more, and of course the possibility that acid was a Principal Part of her. So it didn't take more than a second for Xander to prepare the spell and cast. It caught, pulled at his magic...and fizzled out with no effect. Fuck!

Plan B then. With a small thread of worry deep in his mind and a much larger one babbling _please don't hurt me, I'm not a danger to you, friendly friendly friendly, help me save your people from the invader?_ because planets weren't exactly sentient per se, but they did have their own form of thought and making his intentions known seemed like a good idea, Xander reached into the earth and drew power in a steady stream. It felt wrong, of course. Not just the wrong of pulling the pure energy his earth had anywhere other than at Hellmouths, or even the foreign feeling of the power of an earth that wasn't his own. It was doing something to him, something he hadn't asked for, that he probably wasn't going to be happy with, but he didn't have time to figure out what it was right now. What was the worst that could happen to him, anyway? He had always accepted the risks of the job, as long as the job actually got done.

"Fulguris," he said, channeling the power through the sheath of his sword. In a pinch, the sword could act as a focus as well (he was a big fan of redundancy and having multiple uses for his belongings), but there was never any guarantee that a focus would actually survive being used. If the sheath got destroyed, it was no big deal: just a piece of wood that held a sword. Maybe he'd prettied it up with the carvings he'd done, but it was still just wood. If he needed another, he could make one as long as he had a knife and a piece of wood that would work. Swords were harder. You couldn't just make them any old time you felt like it. You needed a forge. You needed just the right sort of metal (at least if you wanted it to be a good sword). You needed all sorts of tools. Even back home, it was a bit of a hassle to make a new sword, and here he didn't have access to a forge, or know how to get a hold of anything he'd need. His money might not even be any good here. So, yeah, he was using his sheath instead of his sword as a focus.

Lightning arced to the sssrii'a. He managed to keep it under good enough control that the man who was still standing didn't get hit at all, although a few stray tendrils lashed out, variously melting garbage bags and starting a few small fires—nothing that couldn't be stomped out easily. On top of hoping that she was vulnerable to electricity, he'd have to hope that she was vulnerable all over, or that he managed to hit a vulnerable spot out of pure blind luck, because it was all he could do to keep the lightning from hitting the muggle who was still fighting. He'd heard controlling lightning compared to herding cats in the past, but he'd also heard that about dealing with his girls and, more generally, SWCI agents, and he'd never had a problem with the girls or the agents. Lightning was infinitely harder to deal with, like politicians; except that with politicians you could always use other politicians to force them to cooperate, and you couldn't do that with lightning.

Whether it was a lucky strike or a general vulnerability, Xander got lucky. With an agonized cry, the sssrii'a died. Fortunately, she was a melter rather than an exploder, because Xander wasn't entirely certain that any of the shields he knew would be effective against her blood, or whatever it turned into when she died, and while a small amount of it could be dealt with, once you ran out of things to wipe it off with you were screwed, and demon explosions kind of tended to soak everything around them. Now there was a hazardous puddle of acid blood on the ground, but it was better than a whole alley painted with the stuff.

The uninjured muggle turned towards Xander, and surprise flickered across his face.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" Xander asked.

"No, I simply...could have sworn you were older when we came upon you."

"What? How old did you think I was? How old do you think I am?"

"On first glance, you looked middle aged. Now I see that you're...in your twenties?" he guessed.

"I haven't been in my twenties for a long time, and I know I don't look like I do, either. Did you hit your head before you got here or something?"

He looked confused. "No, I don't have a concussion. To be honest, twenties is the high end of the age range I would place you in."

Xander thought to verify that he still looked like he had that morning; he'd think he would have noticed something like that, but then again he hadn't had much free time since that portal first appeared. After a quick cleaning, his sword was shiny enough to use as a mirror. He held it up...and saw that the muggle was right. Shocked, he reached up to touch hair that hadn't been that dark in a long time. Before his eyes, the familiar scars around his eyepatch disappeared. Wondering, he dared to flip his eyepatch up (normally a bad idea; there were a large number of people who were disgusted by the sight of his empty socket), and for the first time in a very long time two eyes blinked back at him from the mirror.

Now that he thought about it, his leg didn't hurt either. But he was a loss about why it had happened. _Was happening_ , he corrected himself; he could see the years still slipping off of his face. He estimated he was in his late teens now, though he'd been able to pass for an adult at this age. If he didn't stop it soon, he'd be a child...or not exist at all. But what had caused it?

A tickle at the back of his mind reminded Xander that he was still connected to this earth, which made him realize that... "Oh," he said. "Hold on, I need to fix this."

He dove back into his connection with the earth. There had been a reason he hadn't wanted to connect to it before he'd made a proper introduction of himself; sometimes, that kind of thing led to unpredictable results. It could have been worse: he could have been fried by the power upon contact, or...well, there were a lot of possibilities. Magic didn't exactly have a lot of limits if there was enough power behind it, and a planet had a lot of power when it chose to use it.

 _::glee::_ the planet emoted. _::mine now::_ It didn't use words, of course, and wasn't even properly sentient. But it could have feelings, and apparently in this case it felt strongly that Xander belonged to it now. And, in a strange sort of way, deaging him made some approximation of sense. He was new to the planet, and in the normal course of things, beings who were new to the planet were young. To the planet, it was the natural order of things for him to be a baby right now, and it had the power to make that happen.

Xander tried his hardest to make his feelings on the matter clear, treating it like he might treat one of the youngest kids who found themselves involved with SWCI when they messed up with good intentions: he didn't blame the planet for its wishes, and knew that it thought that it was doing the right thing, but it would be best if it didn't do that. And if it didn't reverse it, then at least let it stop at this point. He could live with being a teenager; teenagers were close enough to fully grown for him to feel comfortable. But children couldn't defend themselves; even if they knew what to do, their bodies simply weren't able to pull it off.

The planet pouted at him, indignant that he didn't want to do things _the right way_. But really, acting just like any one of his people would act? That really wasn't the best way to get its own way. Xander might go along with almost everything his people wanted that wouldn't be a complete and utter disaster, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to put his foot down when their plans were terrible. _No_ , he sent back firmly.

The planet was, at least, reasonable; better-behaved than he would have expected of his home, if he'd ever gotten into an argument with it. But then, this earth seemed younger, almost. Maybe not physically (he tried not to judge anybody on their appearance or even their actual, physical age; otherwise he'd be judged the same), but mentally. Emotionally was probably a better word for it; there wasn't really much mentality there (not that he objected; beings with minds were more likely to interfere with things, and interfering wasn't really something you wanted planets to do). It was as if this Earth hadn't been subjected to the many near-apocalypses that his earth had been since humans had first kicked demons out of the dimension. Which was entirely possible; his earth was a Major Nexus, with far more dimensional travel both to and from it than most other dimensions had. If this earth was in one of those other dimensions, which was very likely, maybe it hadn't lived, so to speak, through everything his earth had. Maybe it really was younger in that way.

Even the earth was young here. That was a nice thought, that somewhere there was a dimension where all of the terrible things that had scarred his earth over the years simply hadn't happened. Actually being in that dimension? He wasn't going to lie, it kind of creeped him out. Did nothing happen here? Was the sssrii'a the worst threat this world had ever faced or something? What did people _do_ with their time, if they didn't have to fend off the apocalypse at least once a year (and often as many as four times)? Was he going to have to find out? Well, he'd have time; the planet might have agreed to stop deaging him, but it had left him at the age he was now, a teenager, and he doubted he could pass as older.

Xander allowed the connection to the planet slip back into the back of his mind: still there, because the planet didn't want to let him go even that little bit that would turn him back into an ordinary being of this planet. Mentally (and as quietly as possible there; he didn't want the planet to hear) he rolled his eye…eye **s**! He had two now! Well, that was something to be thankful for, he supposed, and he couldn't have been much older and still have the left one, so he sent his thanks to the planet and returned his attention to the world outside of his head.

"And that's why you don't borrow power from an earth in a different reality before properly introducing yourself," he said to the muggle. "It's got a bit of a tendency to make things go wonky. But it's fixed now, as much as it's going to be."

"You look even younger now."

"Yeah, well, planets aren't big on taking their gifts back, even if they're unwanted gifts. So now I'm…however old I look. A teenager? On the outside, and on the inside I'm still every bit a 321 year old man."

"You look about 14 years old. 321 years old?"

"Well yeah, the more you're exposed to magic, the longer you live if you don't get yourself killed. And I've spent most of my life on various Hellmouths, around the fringes of some fairly major works of magic, and so forth. I'm about as magic-saturated as a person can get, and obviously I've managed to avoid getting myself killed. So yeah, 321, and it's not like I was on my last legs before this deaging thing, either."

"I…see."

"Oh, good." Xander had been worried that he'd have to explain more (there was a reason he wasn't ever one of the people sent to make first contact with Slayers' families), but apparently this muggle was better at handling things than others he'd encountered in the past. "Have you checked to see if your friend's all right?"

He kind of twitched, like he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before. But Xander had seen all sorts of people get thrown in the past, so he was pretty sure the guy was all right. Yeah, it had looked dramatic, but he'd gotten thrown into some garbage bags. Icky, maybe, but softer than it could have been. But "probably" never reassured anybody, so he kept his mouth shut and let the guy check on his friend.

It was pretty much what he'd expected: the redhead had gotten a bump on the head and gotten knocked out, but he'd be fine, barring complications. He was even coming around already when they went over to check on him. But the other man was a worrier and insisted that he go to a doctor. It was a small injury to go to a doctor over, but if it had been one of his people, Xander would have insisted that they go and get checked out. There normally wasn't much they could do about head injuries, but it was better safe than sorry.

With the redhead awake, they finally got around to introductions. The redhead was "Mr. Hendricks", no first name offered, and the other man was John Marcone. Since he hadn't changed his identity in the past few minutes, he was of course still Xander Harris. They didn't say a thing about who they were aside from their names, but there weren't all that many possibilities for people who wore suits and carried guns when they weren't really expecting to be attacked, and they really didn't have that law enforcement vibe about them. But who was he to judge? If he got upset every time he ran into a criminal, he'd be upset an awful lot of the time. He handled supernatural crime: leave the purely human crime to the human cops, he always said.

Hendricks was a bit unsteady on his feet, so Xander gave John a hand with helping him to their car. John used the opportunity to get as much information out of Xander as possible. It was kind of blatant, really, but Xander didn't mind. As far as he was concerned, people were free to learn as much or as little about the supernatural as they wanted to learn. If they were smart, they wouldn't go out to fight unless they could take care of themselves, but if they did and they weren't, that was their own choice. At one time, he would have been about the last person anybody would have thought likely to survive hunting, and look at him now. If anybody wanted to do that, he wasn't going to take that opportunity away from them. And he didn't mind answering questions, even the really really stupid ones—which fortunately John wasn't asking. This was his _life_ , and it didn't seem like a lot of people understood that: he could talk about it extensively, until his audience was long past bored, and still have more to talk about. And who found their own life boring? Why would they continue to live that life if they found it to be boring? But he didn't talk people's ears off most of the time. Most people weren't as interested in it as he was, even if they were in the same line of work; it would just be rude to force them to listen to him talk about it all the time. So, faced with an interested audience, Xander was perfectly happy to expound on whatever John asked about. Yeah, he was pretty sure it was interest for the sake of whatever schemes he had going/planned to have in the future, rather than for interest's sake, but he'd take what he could get. And there really wasn't much anybody could do with the information Xander was giving John and Hendricks that would be too much of a problem, but he included a few very unsubtle stories with the moral of "you do fucked up things, fucked up things happen to you sooner or later." John was smart enough to catch that message coming through loud and clear.

He and John got Hendricks into the car without a problem, and John paused. "Perhaps it is not the best idea for you to come to the doctor with us—I wouldn't want any of that equipment to fail due to your magic—"

Xander's eyebrows rose without his intervention. John was apparently involved enough with the supernatural that he knew about magic's effect on technology, but he didn't know of a doctor who had decent equipment that wouldn't get fried? He hadn't even known that they made any medical equipment that delicate—after all, most people went to the hospital in situations that were stressful enough to make anybody with even a smidgen of power start frying electronics if they were too delicate, and it wasn't like there hadn't been heavy duty Tesla Compensators since about the 1920s. But John wasn't likely to know the intricacies of electronic engineering; Xander only knew because it had gotten thrown into the supernatural history classes he'd been forced to take over the years.

"—but you seem to know what you're talking about and I'd like to hear more. Since you're new to this reality, you must be in need of a job, and I can take care of any paperwork you'll need. Any salary you want."

"Somehow, I don't think my morals are compatible with working for you," Xander said mildly.

John stilled. "Why would you think that?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "Please. You're both wearing suits and carrying guns, and since neither of you has flashed a badge yet? Yeah, somehow I'm not thinking you're not feds. And the only other likely possibility is organized crime. There's a _very_ small possibility you're just business men, but you were both too calm about getting into a fight for that to be likely. And I hate the name, but there's a reason I'm called the White Knight. I mean, I've actively kicked demon ass since I was fifteen, and while I don't care about human evils unless I see them happening in front of me, there's still that little clause of _unless I see them happening in front of me_. I don't know a lot about the organized crime business, but I do know that it's not all 'bad guys' beating up and killing 'bad guys'—I'm sure that there are people who want to be completely uninvolved, and get hurt anyway. I'm not judging—I know that at least part of it's about the business, and you probably can't do anything about most of it even if you really don't want to do it—but you're able to do that, and I'm not. Not without disrupting your operations, anyway."

"And yet you don't seem very concerned that _I_ do it."

Xander shrugged. "Should I be? I mean, it's kind of a given that somebody does it, isn't it? And I'm not outraged about that, so why would I be upset that you're one of the people who does it? There's enough for me to do dealing with the supernatural—well, okay, I don't know about _here_ , but there always has been enough for me to do—and adding humans into the mix just for the hell of it seems kind of stupid to me."

"I can offer very flexible terms of employment," John offered, but Xander wasn't biting. "Well, if you change your mind…" He pulled out a business card, wrote something on it, and handed it to Xander. "My personal number."

"I don't think I will change my mind, but thank you anyway." No reason not to be polite, right? And he'd fallen into odd company more than once in the past; he wasn't about to ignore the possibility of unforeseen circumstances.

***

This world, or at least the Chicago he'd found himself in, was _boring_. Xander could go out walking at night and not be attacked at all, no matter where he went. Back home, there'd be homeless shelters and soup kitchens acting as a cover for schemes to enthrall the homeless or portals to other dimensions where humans were used as food and/or slave labor. Cleveland was worse than other cities on that front, he knew, despite SWCI's constant efforts to clear them out, but they had a presence in every city he'd ever had agents in. Here, they were nothing but homeless shelters and soup kitchens. The warehouse districts, usually a hotbed of supernatural activity, actually had humans in them at night. And not the usual idiots who had somehow managed to turn off their survival instincts, but people who would never be stupid enough to go to any warehouse or docks district, back home. Seriously, there were hardened criminals going about their business at warehouses in the dead of night here! It was like everything was reversed here.

With as boring as things were in this dimension, Xander found himself with ridiculous amounts of free time and nothing to do in them. He kept up his nightly patrol, because he honestly didn't know what else he'd do at night, but since he hadn't encountered a single hostile being in an entire week of patrolling, he allowed himself to interrupt his patrol and just talk to people, or lend a hand if somebody needed one. Why not? There was nothing to be in a hurry for, around here. Sometimes he got paid when he helped out. It wasn't why he helped, and he didn't really have many uses for money other than to buy food (and these days he didn't have to support the appetites of any Slayers, so it didn't even cost much), but he took it anyway, so that he could spread the wealth to people who actually needed it. Sure, he'd probably need money at _some_ point—his weapons were good, but there wasn't really such a thing as "unbreakable", so he'd have to replace them eventually, albeit at a much more leisurely pace than he would have to if he actually had any use for them—but he didn't have any use for it _now_ , and it wasn't like it would take too long to earn enough for whatever he needed when it was time.

All this free time of his connected him to a gossip network that might not be as efficient as SWCI's, but worked well enough for his purposes. Criminals and the homeless depended on gossip to keep themselves safe; hooked into their overlapping but not identical gossip networks, he'd hear about anything that might be up his alley: strange disappearances or deaths, areas that were just plain creepy, just plain weird rumors...any one of them might be supernatural. Because there had to be something, at least occasionally, right?

That was his nights. He could have done more of the same during the day, and he did to some extent, but if things were dead at night, he didn't hold out much hope for the day. And at least during the day there were other things to do. He wasn't anywhere near getting back into shape after his deaging had made him lose all of his muscle, but he was working on it, and in the meantime investigating the various gyms and dojos across the city to see if any of them appealed to him. He hoped he could find one that did; he may have gotten spoiled by the general level of competence at SWCI, but he couldn't afford to be too picky now—he wasn't going to get back up to top fighting shape (or as close to it as he could manage at his current physical age) by just working on his own. But the search was discouraging. He was used to training for actual combat, for the people he sparred with to be training for the same reason. To him, form had always only ever been important insofar as it worked—he hadn't even had any formal instruction until he'd been fighting for nearly a decade—and he'd always fought with no holds barred, other than ones that did permanent damage. And although he hadn't spent much time in non-SWCI dojos, everything he'd heard had led him to believe that they were geared towards helping people learn how to _survive_. But here in Chicago, he didn't see much of that.

Okay, he could see the logic of concentrating on one discipline in the beginner classes. Beginners would just be confused and overwhelmed by introducing anything else into the mix. But what good was it to continue to only fight against people who studied the same discipline as you, even into the advanced levels? What good was keeping all of these nitpicky rules into the advanced levels? What good was it to have an area designated "out of bounds"? He'd never been in any substantial fight that kept to a small, artificial area like that (staking vampires didn't count). And most of them didn't get into weapons until the advanced levels, if at all! It was if they weren't teaching how to fight at all, just some whacky complex freeform dance with occasional bruises.

With a sigh, Xander turned to leave his latest prospect. He'd been so hopeful about this one, too. It had advertised that it taught martial arts used in the military, and self-defense courses. But the self-defense courses were apparently very basic classes intended to teach how to defend against humans without much knowledge of fighting. The military martial arts were better; at least they didn't frown upon fighting dirty or using whatever you had to in order to win, and they did seem to be geared towards actual use outside of a tightly controlled competition. But they still weren't what he expected out of any place he trained.

A man wearing the dojo's shirt stopped him. "Do you mind if I ask why you're leaving?"

Xander shrugged. "You guys are the best I've seen so far in Chicago, and I'll probably come back if I can't find anywhere better, but honestly I haven't seen anything that's up to my usual standards in sparring partners...uh, no offense."

The man's eyebrows rose. "What kind of sparring partners do you usually have?"

Xander shrugged again. "I didn't used to think they were too unusual except for their obsession with fighting, but apparently people here don't know how to fight like they do."

"And you spar with them? Care to demonstrate?"

Xander considered it. "Well, I'm kind of out of shape at the moment...so don't expect my best. Are we doing rules, or just no permanent damage? Weapons or no weapons?"

The man seemed to have expected Xander to decline, as if he thought Xander was making claims he couldn't back up, and it took him a few seconds of just blinking in surprise at Xander before he pulled himself out of it. Xander waited it out. "Uh, no permanent damage works for me. And how about no weapons for now?"

"Works for me."

Everybody else went barefoot on the mat, so Xander took off his shoes; it seemed to be a common rule in these parts, no matter how crazy it seemed to Xander: why would you change what you wore, to practice? Wouldn't you have to fight in just whatever you had on whenever you were attacked, when you used those skills in the future? But when in Rome...at least his sparring partner didn't seem surprised that he hadn't changed his clothes; this dojo didn't have uniforms like some of the others did.

The other activities going on in the dojo stopped and everybody focused on Xander and his sparring partner. Xander was used to a certain amount of people watching him spar when he did so anywhere other than Cleveland, simply because he was so well-known, but he wasn't anywhere near as good as some of the others, so having an entire dojo watching was a bit of an odd feeling. But they were probably watching because of his sparring partner, not him; maybe the man was better than the rest here. He was unlikely to be up to even Xander's level even then, but at least it wouldn't be too bad to face somebody better than anybody here. And if he was as not-terrible as Xander was expecting, he was probably able to be trained to a higher level, so it might be worth hanging around here to teach him even if Xander could find someplace better than this.

They sparred. The other man was even less terrible than Xander had been expecting him to be, which was a pleasant surprise. Yeah, okay, he wouldn't have approved him for a long-term place on a combat team until he was better, but the guy was definitely not bad for a civilian. Of course, Xander was still playing with him to draw the fight out longer and really assess his skills, but not as he would have had to with anybody else in this dojo. He had a solid grasp of what worked and what didn't and good survival instincts, but he just didn't have the speed that you really needed in Xander's line of work. Fair enough, Xander supposed; the guy wasn't actually _in_ Xander's line of work; he probably hadn't ever had any reason to develop the speed to go toe-to-toe with vampires, demons, and other beings faster than humans could ever hope to be.

Eventually Xander started to feel a little bit of strain (his endurance was so shot these days, it wasn't even funny), and cut the spar short. They were both covered in sweat, breathing heavily. Neither of them had a bruise on them: the other man's blows hadn't gotten through Xander's defenses, and Xander hadn't left one with the move that ended the sparring. There was applause from all around, and everybody gathered around for a few minutes to offer their congratulations before they were shooed off to do their own work.

"Wow, you're fast," his opponent said.

Xander made a face. "That's not fast, that's horribly out of shape and the fact that I'm fourteen. I couldn't hold my own in a real fight."

"You _what_?" he said incredulously. "Seriously, who have you been training with, that you think you're such a bad fighter? I'm in at least the top 25 fighters in the world, and you were toying with me."

"Wait, _that_ fighting is in the top 25 in the world?" Xander demanded. "Seriously, how? I know you don't have demons invading all the time, but how can you not have, I don't know, military who are good? Or people who do it as a hobby?"

"Um. What?"

Running back in his head over what he'd said, Xander groaned. This world was so muggle-y that he'd decided that it was probably better not to say anything about the alternate dimension thing. But now that the cat was out of the bag, it wouldn't hurt to tell the truth. "Uh, I'm from an alternate reality," he said. "We have demons and vampires all over the place, and apparently you don't have many here, so...I'm guessing that's why standards are so low here compared to back home."

"I'm pretty sure that this is the point I'm supposed to call the men in white coats, but given the way you fight? I think I'm going to believe you when you say you come from an alternate reality." He shook his head. "At least it's less embarassing to be beaten by someone who's fought demons than it is to have lost to just some random kid off the street...you've got to be older than you look, to have actually been a part of that."

"321," Xander said. "I got deaged a bit back; I'm still working on getting back into shape."

"You...what?"

"Well it's not like I was out fighting demons when I was 14, so of course this body's not in shape. I've been working on it, but it takes time, and I'm about hitting the point at which I can't improve on my own. Though at least I've managed to stop compensating for my eye, since I'm back to two now. I haven't managed to fix my footwork yet, though; I'm still barely moving even though my leg's perfectly fine now."

"Didn't seem to hold you back any."

"Again, no offense, but your world has pretty messed up standards of being a good martial artist. I'm pretty used to most of the people around me being better than I am—and I'm not just talking about the people who are enhanced in some way, I'm talking about completely ordinary humans with no powers or abilities that would help them. I've got a tendency to win, but it's pretty much only because I have more experience than them, not because I'm actually _better_."

For a moment it seemed like the guy would argue with him, even though everything he'd said was correct and made perfect sense, but in the end he didn't. "Well, regardless of your usual standards for sparring partners, I don't think you're going to find much better in Chicago. I can tell you where you might have some luck, but again…I'm not exactly bad at fighting."

"Well that's depressing."

"I think it's kind of depressing how much better you are."

"Well, you've got some potential. I could teach you, I suppose."

***

It took Xander a while to find what passed for occult shops in this city. Sure, early on he'd found a couple that tried to claim that they were occult shops, but it was obvious that they didn't even know that magic was real. It was all just the fake stuff. Really? Why would they even bother? But he was starting to realize that this world was backward, so he just rolled his eyes and moved on.

But eventually he found the shops that knew what they were doing. What looked like the best occult bookstore in town, Bock's Ordered Books, had a front of mostly poser books, with a few real harmless beginner books mixed in. The back room was where the rare and/or dangerous books were. It was kind of odd: none of the occult shops back home had ever bothered, just mixed the fake stuff with the real stuff, the harmless with the dangerous-in-the-right-hands, only making a concession for the most dangerous of them, the ones that killed anyone who touched them or could lead to the end of the world. But he supposed it fit with the marshmallow fluffiness of this world.

For some reason, Bock was reluctant to allow him into that back room. Xander didn't get it. Sure, he was physically fourteen years old, but it wasn't like he was inexperienced. But this world was pretty protective of even its teenagers (or was it that they were protecting the world _from_ the teenagers?). Even if living on the Hellmouths tended to produce adults who were fairly cavalier towards what teenagers did with their time, Xander had traveled enough to know that even away from the Hellmouths in his world, there wasn't as much effort put into protecting teenagers from the real world as there was in this world. Or maybe it was that they were trying to protect those they saw as inexperienced. It was a reasonable assumption, he supposed; there weren't many fourteen year olds who were ready for that level of magical work, even in his world. And not everywhere was like SWCI, where everybody was judged solely on their skills and whatever else affected their ability to do the work. He wouldn't have placed a fourteen year old in a job that involved working with outside, non-allied agencies except in exceptional circumstances simply because they wouldn't have taken a teenager seriously.

There wasn't a SWCI here, as far as he could tell. Nothing even close. There was something called the White Council, which seemed to be some sort of government for the mages with a lot of power of this world—and enforced their edicts on those with less power as well, although they ignored them the rest of the time. And it didn't sound like their Laws had a lot of flexibility built into them. If you broke them, you'd be killed, no matter what extenuating circumstances there might be. And they certainly weren't open like SWCI was: more of a shadowy figure threatening everybody to be good or else, not bothering to look deeper than the surface of things. It was enough to make him angry...but it wasn't any of his business. He wasn't a wizard, so he didn't have any right to interfere even if he'd wanted to go head to head with an organization like that without any backup at all, never mind useful backup. But it was something to keep in mind, in case he ran into some budding magic users somewhere. It'd be no good to let them get killed because they broke a Law that they didn't know existed.

***

 

A few bright points aside, Xander was very, very bored. He couldn't even remember what he'd done the last time he'd had this kind of time on his hands, aside from sleeping a lot. He couldn't do that now; there wasn't anybody around here that he trusted enough to sleep with, and definitely nobody who knew him well enough to agree to it. People were always so weird about sleeping with somebody without having sex with them, like they didn't even know how to do it. What was there to know? You lay down with another person and went to sleep, the end. But that wasn't something he could change about people—hadn't been able to even at SWCI—so he was stuck getting a few very interrupted hours of sleep in the early morning and late afternoon. They were the hours he usually slept, of course—his work wouldn't let him sleep at other times—but a bit shorter than usual, and so full of nightmares and interruptions by the smallest sounds that it was a wonder he was still functional, never mind getting the right amount of sleep.

In between sleep and patrols and teaching a few people a bit of self-defense, he was still at a loss for what to do. Even he could only talk to people so many hours of the day, and what else was there to do? He used to do some woodcarving when he had time—never enough to finish any projects quickly, but his cane was proof that he'd once had enough time to at least finish them eventually—so he did a bit of that, but there wasn't really anything he wanted to carve so he didn't do much. Of course, he used to do some recreational theft with Marcie when they were stuck at the reunions, so he could do that now if he really wanted to, but that was more something that he enjoyed because it was something that they did together than something that he thought he'd enjoy on his own. So he didn't do that. Besides, the preparation would take some time and money if he wanted to do it right, and that just seemed like too much work for something that he wasn't that much into. Marcie had always handled the preparations in the past.

So what else was he left with? When he'd been a teenager for the first time, it had been all about hanging out at the Bronze, and then he'd gotten started on fighting demons, which was obviously out here. And the clubs here were…tame. Especially the teen clubs. What was the fun of going out and listening to music and dancing, without that frisson of danger there was whenever you went clubbing back home? Even the muggles, completely unaware of the supernatural, could feel it: that instinctual feel that some predator was stalking the herd, looking for the perfect prey. Here, there were no predators stalking the clubs looking for their next happy meal on legs: only human predators, ineffective as they were.

He was bored, there was no doubt about it. Bored enough that one day he borrowed a can of spray paint and wrote on a wall. Bored enough that the next day, he did the same thing, kept coming back, adding to the poem, illustrating it the best he could. Okay, so it wasn't the best work of art in the world. He never claimed that it was. He'd never been an artist of anything other than wood and metal, and even then he only ever made utilitarian items. He could get his point across in drawings and painting and poetry, but it would never be the best, or even close to the best. That wasn't a bad failing; as long as he could make himself understood when playing Pictionary, he was happy. But his lack of artistry would never cease to give him problems when working magic.

Magic was _meant_ to be an art form, worked on the fly. You had to have an instinct for it to make it work well, to make it beautiful. Xander could kludge together a spell, but they were always ugly things, never the graceful, beautiful works of art that spells were meant to be. _His_ spells almost hurt to look at, if you knew anything about magic, like they'd been glued together from a collection of marshmallows, popsicle sticks, and dried noodles. They did the work— _that_ didn't require any artistic ability—but never as easily or well as others' spells would, and if he was figuring out how to work them on the fly, they leaked magic like a sieve. IF he had time to figure them out before he had to use them, time to work out the math behind them, they wouldn't be as horrible; he could keep them from leaking magic so badly, and keep them from being outright painful to look at, but they'd always be more functional than elegant.

Really, he only excelled in the more methodical and nitpicky forms of magic: wards and rituals, mostly. There, magic was more of a science. Spells were constructed from smaller spells, the smaller building up the larger, rather than shaped from whole cloth like most other spells. Nevertheless, they were odd specialties to go together. Most people thought of wards as akin to architecture: certain things were necessary, and only the type and decoration of them could change. Rituals, on the other hand, didn't have much that was required. Some beings preferred certain things, but there were always alternatives that would work nearly as well, if you were creative enough. Wards were clean, almost purely mathematical in their form. Rituals were dirty things, built of sympathetic magic and sacrifice. Few people thought of them in the same way. But Xander did. They were both forms of magic that were undertaken slowly, at a remove from the effects. They could both benefit greatly by working magic carefully rather than instinctually.

He wasn't doing magic now, of course; he didn't have any reason to. This was just art and poetry, and so what if the poetry wasn't in English? He knew it well enough, after so much research, that it was almost as comfortable to him as Watchers' Latin, the official language of SWCI. And Norse was better for this particular poem than any other language he was fluent in, so why not? Putting it in English would just end up sounding like the Cat in the Hat. Which, don't get him wrong, was a great book, but the verses just didn't work out as well for talking about sssrii'a as Norse did. And of course, now that he'd thought about that, he had started to try to figure out what that would sound like, but the only thing he could come up with in English was sounding more like a limerick. Maybe he'd just quit while he was ahead, not try to make a version in English.

***

 

 

Murphy was a bit pissed. SI had more than enough cases to deal with at the moment, and they'd just been handed another one…finding out who'd done some graffiti. Somebody figured that, because it had a monster in it, it was SI's job to handle it. Never mind the homicides she had to deal with, this graffiti was supposed to be her top priority.

The graffiti was…impressive. The art was good enough. Maybe not the best in the world, but good enough, especially considering that it was done with spray paint. But the quality wasn't what she was talking about when she said it was impressive. It was a big piece, just one giant monster taking up an entire wall of an alley, with the only other decoration being writing in some language she'd never seen before. It didn't look like it was finished, so she decided to wait around and see if somebody came back to finish it. There was always a chance she'd get lucky, right? She just hoped it didn't take long; she had other things to do, and catching a graffiti artist was not at the top of her list.

Fortunately, it didn't take long. A few minutes later a teenager came around the corner, casual as you'd please, and pulled out a can of spray paint to get back to work (or possibly vandalize somebody else's work, but she wasn't feeling too picky right this moment). "Freeze!"

Fortunately, he didn't resist; she didn't need to waste more time on it than she already had. There was a bit of grumbling, but nothing too bad, just upset that he didn't get to finish his poem after he'd thought of a great next line.

It was something she'd expect of some sort of renegade art student. But at second glance, there was no way this was an art student. He wasn't old enough to shave, much less be in college. And he was dressed like he expected to be outside in the weather for most of the day, not just going out for a short period to do some art. Quite frankly, she didn't have a clue how to categorize him.

"What did you think you were doing?" she asked him. "I have better things to do than track down graffiti artists."

He ducked his head, looking embarrassed. "I was bored. There wasn't anything better to do. I didn't think anybody would care."

"The daughter of a friend of the mayor's saw it and was scared," Murphy said dryly. "Sometimes it doesn't matter how big of a crime it, just who notices it."

"I'll have to remember that," the kid said, and smiled at her.

Their eyes met, and suddenly she wasn't in her office any more, but on a field in the middle of nowhere. It was populated with men of all different ages, from teenagers to senior citizens, but all of them were recognizably the same person. Some of them were fighting shadowy monsters with weapons or magic. Others were holding their own heart, clearly torn from their chests, standing over the bodies of others and crying. Some of them looked like they were having fun, pranking each other or talking or even among the fighters. A few of them stood at the edge of a massive hole that seemed to lead to nowhere at all, freaking out or crying. Wandering among the men were a few odd characters: a hyena, what looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon, and what looked like a cavewoman. Wisps of...something hovered around a few of the men, who acted differently than the others.

And then, with a jerk, it was over and she was back in her office looking at the boy. Who she really couldn't look at as a boy anymore. If that had been the inside of his head, or his soul or something, he wasn't as immature as boys his age were. Sure, the fact that there were so many of "him" in his head, and even a few that weren't him, was a bit worrying to her, but she didn't know enough about the way these things worked to say if it was really something concerning, or if it was only concerning because of her inexperience. She blinked at him, a bit dazed.

He smiled back at her. "First soulgaze?"

"Uh, yes."

He cocked his head to the side. "But you don't look like you're surprised. Why?"

"I, ah, have a consultant who's a wizard."

"Really?" he asked. "I thought that magic was supposed to be all underground in this world."

She shrugged. "He knows what he's talking about, and really it's no different than having a psychic as a consultant. Nobody really believes he's a real wizard, but it's allowed as long as he gets results."

"Huh," Xander said. "This world is so weird."

"What do you mean, this world?"

"I'm from another reality."

"Really? Why are you here, then?"

"Unfortunate side effect of preventing an apocalypse, in this instance. And there's no safe way back, so I'm stuck here."

" _An_ apocalypse? I thought it was, you know, _the_ Apocalypse."

"I don't know about in this world. It seems to be a lot safer, overall, so maybe that's the way things are here. Back home I don't think there was a single year that we didn't have to prevent at least one apocalypse."

"Wow, that really does sound different than here. I hope."

"Hey, if the world hasn't ended yet, it's probably in good hands. But it's the little things that keep getting to me."

"Like what?"

"Well, for one thing you've got an independent magic user as a consultant. Back home, it was really only the big supernatural defense organizations that did any sort of work with the police. They always tried to arrest and/or kill any independents when they ran across them during an investigation. I never was able to tell if they actually thought that the independents were guilty of whatever they charged them with, or if they knew the truth and did it anyway."

"Why would you think they knew the truth? It's not something that a lot of people know."

"No, not here, but back home? Sure, there's some people who honestly don't know, and there's a ton of people who don't want to know, and ignore it very hard, but there's also a lot of people who do know. And if you're talking about, for instance, night shift cops, well, that's not a job where you can last for long if you don't know what's the what. And there are some situations where, for instance, they were in the same room as a vampire and an independent demon hunter, and they drew on the hunter. Even if they had no clue what a vampire was, there's no way their family line could have lasted with instincts terrible enough that they can't even tell which of the others is the threat."

"That's instinct?" she asked.

Xander hesitated. "Maybe not here, I guess. You guys have practically nothing preying on you on this Earth. I read a history of human magic once, and apparently on my Earth humans evolved instincts and the near-universal ability to do magic because we were preyed on so heavily by demons that they were needed just to survive. So I guess that, since you guys aren't prey as often as we are, you might not have the same instincts we do. It's kind of weird to think of it that way, though, because aren't instincts supposed to be just instincts, nothing complicated to them?"

"You would think so." She said. "If something like instincts might be different in your world than in ours, what else is different?"

"Well, I'm assuming everything relating to the supernatural. Apparently there's something called the White Council here, which makes and enforces laws for magic practitioners. We didn't do anything different for magic practitioners—I mean, one of the Laws is no killing with magic. How is that any different than killing any other way? It's kind of crazy to enforce a death penalty over the method of killing. We treat it the same, no matter what method they used—although obviously there's a bit of a difference depending on how much they drew the killing out. Government-wise, well, I don't really know anything about the government either here or at home, so I can't really say much about that, but I'm betting there isn't a Department of Homeworld Security here? I mean, there's so little of the supernatural her that even if there is a government agency devoted to it, it's probably not a top-level department like it is back home. Actually, that reminds me. HWS also handles aliens, and I have no idea if you have them here."

"Aliens...?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I assume Earth isn't the only planet with life on it in this universe, because wow, that would be kind of depressing. But my Earth was a big player in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy back in the day, and again now, and I don't know how much that was influenced by the fact that we had so many visitors from alternate dimensions, and how much of it wasn't. I mean, maybe in your reality Earth got overlooked way back when, and never got attacked by aliens because we never attracted their attention. Or maybe things are the same here as they were on my Earth at the same point in the timeline, with them having gotten kicked off of Earth thousands of years ago and not having returned in full force yet. I mean, anything's possible. And as for how that might have affected politics or whatever...I have no idea. I can make educated guesses about some things, but that's not one of them."

"Okay, I don't want to even think about the whole aliens thing, hypothetically not here or not. It's bad enough dealing with wizards gone bad and werewolves tearing through the station."

"Werewolves tearing through the station?" Xander asked. "What kind of werewolves? Because there's three or four types back home, but since it's not an inborn power, they might not be the same types that there are in this universe."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, every universe has certain beings that are native to it, but there are always other beings that are able to survive in the same universe if they manage to travel to it from a different reality. So there's this range of realities in which humans have sprung up as a native species. On the ends of that spectrum, at the high end of magic humans can tolerate and at the low end that they can tolerate, there's overlap with the range of realities in which certain other beings are native. Outward from the human realities, there's a larger range in which humans can survive, but after a few generations either the high magic or the low magic in those realities makes their offspring not human anymore, and it's the same for the demons. To some extent, there's always travel between realities: natural portals, magic, whacky science...they can all lead to tiny portals between realities. So a human slips into a demon reality every once in a while, and a demon slips into a human reality every once in a while, and sometimes it's a larger group that slips between realities. And when it's a larger group, they tend to settle down and make the new reality their home, like a colony almost. And this happens to every reality, but all of the groups are different, and some realities have more travel to or from them. So what can happen is, okay, our realities start out completely identical. But then you get some demons from one reality, and we get demons from a different reality. And because our realities are within the range of worlds that they can thrive in, they do. And however many generations down the line, nobody knows for sure that they're not native to our realities: as far as we're concerned, they've always been there. And maybe we know those different species by the same name, but they're not the same species, and just because I know all about the demon in my reality doesn't mean I know anything about the one in your reality."

"So...werewolves aren't native to this reality, is that what you're saying?"

"It depends on what type you're talking about. There's one type that's kind of an inborn power, or like a spell. But I think that most of them in my reality didn't originate there. Passed on by bite, thet's usually a good sign that it's either not native or it was created deliberately at some point."

"You have werewolves that are passed on by bite?"

"Two types."

"Neither one of those was on the report that Dresden gave me."

"Then, yeah, that's a bit more proof that that type isn't native to my reality, unless you guys used to have those types and managed to stop them before they spread too far."

"How would they...?"

"Yeah, pretty much what you're thinking. Magic has advanced pretty much exponentially in my world recently, and there's no cure for either of those types of werewolf. Some of our top scientists aren't sure it's possible to cure. And considering that to stop them before they spread too far to stop, it would have had to have been the middle ages at the latest? There's no way they would have been trying to actually cure it, just wipe it out of existence."

"That's horrible."

"Yeah, there's a reason I hope the werewolves in my reality aren't native. Because our worlds are definitely close enough that any inborn powers that appear in one are going to show up in another, and if there's a difference in what can be actually *found*...it's not a pretty picture. Not that I'd be surprised. I mean, up until we started some lobbying to get the laws changed, it was explicitly legal to kill anything supernatural. Not that enough independents or their lawyers knew about that law to use it as a defense, or would have found a judge and jury to have been sympathetic to that plea, but it was on the books."

"Wait, that was an actual law?"

"I know, it's horrible, isn't it? I mean, all those peaceful demons could be legally killed at any time."

"No, I mean, it actually was a law?"

"What do you mean? Because there didn't used to be a lot of sympathy for anything that wasn't human."

"Well, we don't have any laws about the supernatural here, because nobody believes that it exists. I'm kind of surprised that you did."

"Still do, it's just a different law—if they're not harming anybody, they have the right to continue living."

"You're missing my point. We don't have any law saying anything, one way or the other."

"How can you not have *anything*? It's not like it's just humans here, and treating demons the same way as humans doesn't generally work out too well—believe me, it's been tried before."

"Why would we have anything? For there to be any laws, there would need to be a lot of politicians who believed in the supernatural, and there aren't. And even if they all believed, making a law about the supernatural would be something that would keep them from getting reelected, so it's not going to happen anytime soon."

"Huh. I suppose that sort of makes sense. You have so little supernatural activity here, that you don't even have to try to ignore it: it just isn't there." He furrowed his brow. "Actually, that might have been a point in that history of human magic, that we evolved instincts that kept us from getting involved in the supernatural unless we were really determined. So maybe you guys don't have those particular instincts?"

"You'd almost think that the world without those instincts would be the one to make the law pertaining to the supernatural."

"Maybe, but you don't realize just how little supernatural activity there is here, compared to back home. Here, I've been going out and looking, and there's practically nothing that I can find. At home? You go to the 7-11 and there's a pretty good chance that your cashier's going to be a demon. And a lot of the time, noticing that somebody's a demon is a good way to get yourself killed, because there's this historical attitude that they don't have any right to exist—and when somebody's afraid they're going to get killed if they let you talk, they're going to look for ways to keep you from talking. So people who notice demons, which is pretty much everybody to some extent or another, because on some level you've got to be aware that when a guy's skin is blue with pink polka dots, it's not just a skin condition or weird makeup, they have instincts that very strongly tell them not to react, because the people who do speak up, who do make a big deal about it? Their genes get wiped out of the gene pool. And you guys haven't had that, so if there was any supernatural around for you to notice, most of you would notice it. But the supernatural is everywhere in my world, so it would be ridiculous to not have a law dealing with it, because otherwise the only thing that would matter would be the laws as pertaining to human-on-human crimes, and all of the people defending the world against demons and apocalypses would end up in jail."

As interesting as their conversation was, Murphy eventually had to get back to work. Before she did so, she called in her consultant, Harry Dresden.

There had been some notice taken of Harry not too long ago, when there had been some sort of terrible thing that had gone on. Nobody had known all of the details, or even most of them, but guessing from what Murphy said, Xander was willing to bet that it had been werewolves of some sort.

It was interesting that, in addition to Harry, and the police and FBI, and possibly at least one werewolf, the other person who was noted as being involved was John. That's right, John Marcone, the mobster—apparently he wasn't just any mobster, but the head of the entire Chicago Outfit. And he was mixed up in some mess involving werewolves and a wizard (the police weren't a surprise, considering his profession). It wasn't his first encounter with the supernatural—even the sssrii'a hadn't been that—but for him to be involved in so many supernatural incidents, in this world where nothing supernatural seemed to happen, was interesting. Statistically improbable, SWCI's math nerds would have said. Was John making some sort of move into the supernatural underground of this world? If he had been just an ordinary mob boss, Xander wouldn't have had any idea why he would have bothered. Back home, of course, the supernatural underground was huge—it was easy to make a profit if you provided what the demons wanted, even with your clientele dying off left and right and raids by SWCI and HWS agents. But here? As far as he could tell, there wasn't a huge supernatural market here, no matter what you were selling. So he doubted that was John's plan. Organized crime was a business, no matter how illegal, and if all he was concerned about was expanding his business he wouldn't be messing around with the supernatural at all if he could avoid it. So it wasn't about the business. But John wasn't some two-dimensional crime boss: he was John. He'd only known John for a few minutes total, and even then he could tell that there was more to him than just his business.

But he'd be damned if he could figure out what John was really after. John wasn't a white knight, to go charging out to save people from the supernatural just because he had that ability. He wasn't the stupid reckless sort that Xander was, the sort that didn't think about whether or not something was possible before he went out to do it. So there was no way he was getting involved in the supernatural in hopes of stopping it: not no way, not no how. The only motivation Xander could think of that really suited John's personality was some sort of convoluted plan that would come to fruition years in the future, but if that was his plan, Xander had no idea what his end goal was. All of the ones he could think of were too stupid for somebody like John to attempt to accomplish. Xander would, sure, and maybe he'd succeed, because he'd done some stupid things that nobody had ever thought would succeed, and he'd pulled them off by some miracle. John was a planner. He wouldn't hinge his plans on miracles, because he wasn't as stupid as Xander. But that also meant that he'd never even try to accomplish those pie in the sky sort of things that Xander was so good at getting done.

It was a sort of thinking that was completely alien to Xander. He certainly couldn't do it. Even if he'd had that ability once (and he could remember his childhood, so he wasn't so sure about that), he'd spent so long going from crisis to crisis that he wasn't sure it was even possible for him to learn how to do any sort of long-term planning. He'd surrounded himself with as many people as he could find who did know how to plan in the long term (and adjust those plans for those times when the latest crisis threw the plan out of whack), and followed their advice where he could, but as far as he was concerned, it was a miracle every time he got up in the morning. He hadn't expected to live to adulthood, not since he started out following Buffy around. Every year, every day, every hour after that was one year, one day, one hour that he hadn't expected to be alive, and he couldn't plan for a future when he was still surprised that he was still alive at the present.

So he might not know what John's plan was, but he knew that he had one. And, somehow, it seemed like his plan involved Harry Dresden.

Harry wasn't a big player, not really. Sure, his name was known in Chicago's supernatural scene, and to some extent in the criminal one as well, but that was mostly because there was so little supernatural that pretty much everything that happened was big news by default. And as for the criminals, they knew Harry's name because it was a bit odd for a mob boss to team up with a wizard, wasn't it? But Harry hadn't really done much. The rumors only knew of a few incidents involving him.

Most recently, there had been the werewolf mess. Nobody was really sure of what had happened, but the Midwest Arcane had run a story about some of it (it was obvious that it wasn't the whole story, but what there was of it rung true), and there had apparently been a fuzzy video of a werewolf that had actually been on the news. Before that, he had apparently taken down the man behind a drug which opened up the third eye of anybody who used it. Xander had shuddered when he had heard about that. It might be safe enough here, where everything was so calm, but back home opening your third eye had been something you never ever did. It hadn't been safe, no matter where you were. His world hadn't been full of rainbows and unicorns, but beings that would as soon eat you as look at you and unknown sites of ancient massacres. There was little in his world that was nice to look at with your third eye open, and much that was horrifying at the least, and sanity-destroying in many instances.

The last rumor was the most ephemeral. Nobody knew if it had even a word of truth in it, or if it was all nothing more than a false rumor. But it was too good a rumor to ignore, that he had once been put on trial for breaking one of the Laws and had somehow avoided being executed. Some people thought that they had seen a Warden hovering around him, just waiting for him to mess up and break another Law, but none of them were entirely certain. It could have been just a man in a grey coat, maybe. It might have been a Warden who was there for some other reason. Lawbreakers weren't allowed to be put on probation, not in the White Council. They didn't even allow Lawbreakers to defend themselves.

Xander didn't know what to think. He hadn't been there for long enough to really have his own opinions on matters like that, and he hadn't even met anybody who had enough power to be a wizard of the White Council. As far as he was concerned, anything he heard might be true or it might be false. The supernatural community ran on gossip just as much as SWCI did, but the gossip here wasn't the substantial stuff he was used to, verified and checked and detailed, but wispy, insubstantial stuff that nobody knew the truth of. And the community here was almost entirely made of people too weak to have any influence or even any real access to information, and they were all too afraid of the real powers of the world to ever dare to ask them any questions and find out the truth. Until and unless he found somebody who would actually know the truth of things, Xander wouldn't know any more than this poor excuse for a gossip network did.

So, honestly, he didn't have a clue what to expect of Harry Dresden. His reputation was all mixed up and confused, nothing to give Xander the true measure of the man. But that was all right; he'd always preferred to judge people himself, or give them the benefit of his acceptance until they proved that they didn't deserve it. He'd been more hard-line back when he'd been a kid, with Angel and Spike in particular, but over the years he'd come to realize that for every rule or generalization that could be made about sentient beings, there were those who were exceptions to that rule or generalization. These days, if he ran into somebody who claimed to want to do good in the world, or who was reluctantly doing good or even just not harming others regardless of their feelings about it, he accepted it at face value. That wasn't to say that he wasn't cautious about it, just that he didn't assume things about people based on his personal feelings towards them, or even whether they had a soul or not, just by their actions. He'd had some people who no sane person would have trusted work for him for years upon years and never betray the trust he gave them, and he'd had people he loved and trusted betray him and the world for reasons that he never would have ascribed to them. So these days he tried not to make snap judgements. Sometimes all somebody needed was a chance to show their true colors, and he was secure enough in his ability to defend himself that he didn't have a problem giving them that chance.

At first glance, Harry didn't look like the person the rumors talked about. Sure, he'd believe that the guy fought something, with the way he wore that leather coat, and the way the rings on his fingers tingled on his senses with their magic, but he acted like a civilian.

Every time Xander stepped out into public he noticed it: civilians didn't make eye contact with anybody if they could help it. It was only within the supernatural world—and more specifically, the community of people fighting against the nastier supernatural elements—that there were great numbers of people who met each other's eyes. Sure, soulgazing could be a bit awkward at times, and some people had experiences that they really did not enjoy, but it was over in a moment, and when you fought with others you needed to make sure that if your eyes met when you were fighting, you wouldn't get distracted at just the wrong moment and get killed because you accidentally soulgazed somebody on your side. So it had long since been a standard policy to soulgaze everybody you ran into that might be fighting with you, just to be on the safe side.

Harry didn't make eye contact. And it wasn't some accidental thing, either: he deliberately avoided it, just like a civilian would back home. Hmmm, now that he saw that, Xander realized that the muggles here seemed to have no problem making eye contact. That was kind of weird, wasn't it? But then again, even the magic users seemed to be thin on the ground in this reality. Maybe, since over time they'd had soulgazes so rarely, they had actually managed to end up with different civilian customs. If this Harry was typical of this world's supernatural fighters, maybe they had started avoiding everybody's eyes because the civilians certainly wouldn't be avoiding theirs. He wondered if the supernatural fighters had a policy of exchanging soulgazes like back home, or if they were so used to their backwards system that they didn't bother to think about what was best for their safety.

"Dresden," Murphy said when he walked in.

"Murphy," he replied. "What's up? Who's this?"

"Xander Harris," Xander said.

"Nice to meet you," Harry said, and turned his attention to Murphy in expectation.

"Mr. Harris is apparently from another reality, and older than he looks."

Harry studied Xander, his eyebrows up in skepticism. "If this is true, there's nothing I can do about the alternate reality thing."

"There's nothing you can do about the deaging, either," Xander added.

"You're not here to deal with that."

"Then what am I here to do?"

"When Mr. Harris is bored, he moonlights as a grafitti artist. Since his only interest seems to be the supernatural, you seem like my best option for finding something to keep him occupied."

"Hell's bells, Murphy, I'm not a babysitter! What do you expect me to do?"

"Whatever you think will work. Or you can just leave him to his own devices. He seems to be good enough at taking care of himself, as long as he keeps from doing anything illegal he shouldn't have any problems."

***

 

Despite his grumbling, Harry didn't really seem to mind too much that he'd just been given a teenager to occupy. He took Xander back to his office, where apparently he spent a lot of his time waiting for clients to call or show up at the door. Being a wizard PI wasn't something that had a lot of people wanting to hire him, Xander guessed. But however bad that might be for Harry's checkbook, it did mean that he was free to spend the afternoon grilling Xander about alternate realities.

Harry seemed like he took things as they looked on the surface, not somebody who did a lot of digging to find out the truth unless he suspected something more on his own. Murphy had told him that Xander had been deaged in addition to being from a different dimension, but it was like he hadn't even heard that part, or thought that Murphy didn't know what she was talking about, because he was treating Xander like he was actually fourteen years old.

It wasn't a difference between worlds in how magic users treated each other; Xander had already had some contact with what there was of a supernatural community around here, and none of the rest of them had treated him like Harry was treating him, except when they honestly thought that he was fourteen. None of them treated other adult magic practitioners like this, even the ones that they knew were inexperienced or just plain stupid. No, it was pretty clear that Harry thought that he was fourteen and was treating him accordingly.

Xander honestly didn't mind. SWCI had never been big on displays of respect, except in a mocking way, and that attitude had spread to a certain extent to the other organizations around the world that fought to keep the darker supernatural elements at bay. Some of the more civilian parts of the supernatural community—covens and the like—were big into the respect, but it had always creeped Xander out a bit when he'd had to interact with them. Forcing people into these formal displays of respect didn't mean a thing about their actual respect. And they kept being really respectful towards *him*. He'd never been able to understand why. Yeah, he was the head of SWCI, but it wasn't like that was his fault! He'd been late to the meeting to choose Giles's successor, and by the time he'd made it there everybody else had already said "not it", so he'd been forced into it. And after that, he hadn't ever been able to convince anybody else to take the position, so he'd been stuck with it. It wasn't like he was going to let himself die just to get out of that damned position! But with his inability to get out of his position came the respect of the civilians.

He was just as fine being treated as a teenager. Really, he couldn't see many drawbacks. Teenagers were generally old enough that they could convince adults of their right to hear information, and they didn't have to put up with the boring forms of respect that adults did. The only drawback was that he'd have to make the effort to convince people before they *would* trust him with information, and he really did hate being kept in the dark, but he could put up with it for a while, as long as it didn't get to be too much. And if it did, well then they'd learn one of the reasons why he was called the One Who Sees. He wasn't above spying if that was the only way he could get information.

Harry's questions were easy to answer, barely even going into the interesting or unique parts of this dimensional travel. Maybe he wasn't very familiar with it, that he needed even the most obvious of information. It was possible; if there really was that little dimensional travel to this reality, maybe he really hadn't encountered it before. Or maybe he just wasn't very experienced, for one reason or another, or didn't think that Xander knew that information. It didn't really matter to Xander. There were people of all types in the world. The ones that wanted to know more would ask about it, and the ones who didn't, wouldn't.

From there they got into a light discussion about how magic was practiced in the different realities. It seemed like Harry was probing, so pretty quickly Xander pointed out that he'd already been told the Laws here, and he even managed to avoid making a face about them! It wouldn't have been very nice to make a face at laws that people here seemed to think were very important. From there, Xander would have expected the conversation to turn to the different organizations in the two realities, but it didn't. Instead, it seemed like Harry was quizzing Xander on magical theory.

Xander could do magical theory in his sleep, possibly literally, especially at the level of the questions Harry was asking him. Since SWCI was formed, everybody associated with it had to further their education in all of the main areas regardless of their specialty, interest, or natural ability, unless they were literally incapable of doing so. Xander had tried to get out of studying magic because of the way it tended to go wonky around him, but that excuse hadn't flown and he'd been forced to study magic for three centuries now.

They had started him out with theory, like all of the basic classes on magic; nobody had wanted any budding magic users rushed into things and using magic before they were able to control it. He'd gotten away with just taking the theory classes for a long time, and it had been useful—there were always practitioners out there who were willing and able to use magic for nefarious purposes—but eventually, he'd been forced to start actively learning how to do magic.

But before he'd been forced to start actively using magic, and even afterwards, Xander had been taught theory, theory, and more theory. From the earliest magical theories that had gained any popularity in the world, to the latest, most cutting-edge theories, Xander had learned it all. He'd studied the math and the physics and the symbology behind magic. He'd studied the smallest details of the most obscure spells until he'd felt like his eye was about to start bleeding. And when he'd studied all of that, he'd studied even more theory.

Xander had studied enough that he'd been forced to accept a PhD in magical theory. He'd studied some more. He'd been forced into doing research on—you guessed it—magical theory, and had written a very detailed book about what he'd learned. And then a few more.

He'd never been all that much into magic—early experiences had soured him to the whole thing, no matter how useful of a tool it could be—but quite frankly, he'd been alive and forced to be on the cutting edge of magical theory, during what was thought of as a magical revolution on par with the scientific, industrial, and electronic revolutions, for longer than most people managed to live in his world. He knew magical theory like it was a part of him, carved into his bones, tattooed onto his skin, imprinted on his mind, flowing in his veins. He could talk magical theory without having to even think hard about it.

He had no idea what Harry was trying to figure out. What bearing did his knowledge of magical theory have on anything, especially when Harry looked like he disagreed at several points but didn't say anything? Xander had practically no interest in magic. It was just a tool to him, a swiss army knife that, yes, could do a lot of really neat things, but wasn't all that interesting in and of itself.

There weren't any clients that afternoon, so Harry spent the whole time quizzing Xander on magical theory. It was kind of boring, but it wasn't like Xander had anything better to do, so he put up with it as well as he could.

"Come on, I'll give you a ride home," he said when he decided to stop waiting for clients to show up.

"I don't need a ride home," Xander said.

"Sure, but I'm offering. Come on, where do you live?"

"I don't know. Wherever."

"What do you mean, wherever? Where's your house or apartment?"

"I don't have one right now," Xander said. "I mean, it's not like I really have any use for one. I don't have enough stuff that I'd have to leave some of it somewhere."

"You're homeless?"

"Yeah..." Xander drew out. "It's not like I mind."

"Well, where do you sleep? What about taking showers?"

"I sleep wherever. It's not like I would sleep any better in a bed, anyway. And they let me take showers at the dojo."

"That's it, you're coming home with me."

"Okaaay...but I don't really see why this is necessary. If I had a problem with it, I'd get an apartment or something. It's not like I'm in danger or anything."

"Kid, you're sleeping on the streets, literally. If you can't see a problem with that, there's something wrong with you."

"You're not the first person to say that," Xander observed cheerfully. "But whatever. I don't really care where I sleep, so I don't have a problem with it. Just don't expect me to hang around all the time. I can't sleep that long in one stretch, and just sitting around in one place at night gets really boring unless I have something really interesting to do."

"So how do you usually sleep then?"

"Late afternoon to early evening, I sleep some. I'm always up by sunset, and I stay up until the early morning—dawn or sometimes a bit earlier or later. Then I sleep for however long I have before I have to get up to do stuff, or until I can't stay asleep any more."

"Your sleep schedule's kind of messed up."

"It works for the life I've always led. And nowadays I can't change it. I tried to, a couple of times, and it just led to frustration...and then of course I ended up asleep when I needed to be awake, so I've given up on ever changing it."

"How can you even get enough sleep like that?"

Xander shrugged. "I don't know. I don't get the recommended 8 hours a night, or whatever, that's for sure, but I get enough to be functional, and when I don't have nightmares or get woken up a lot I'm not even tired, and that's the part that matters, isn't it?"

"Do you get a lot of nightmares?"

Xander snorted. "You try living my life, and tell me how many nightmares you have. The brain's got to work things out somehow, doesn't it?"

"I suppose. But you shouldn't have them so often that it's a real problem."

"Yeah, well, I don't have them when I sleep with somebody, but you try finding somebody who isn't creepy and will agree to sleep with a fourteen-year-old."

Harry got a kind of comical expression of shock on his face. "You're sleeping with people at fourteen?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "Platonically, not getting groiny. Not that I'd mind some of that, either, but again with the finding somebody who isn't creepy and would still agree to it. Or would have a serious relationship with a fourteen-year-old, since I don't do casual."

The expression on Harry's face was a hilarious mixture of disbelief and horror at the idea of someone as young as Xander getting groiny, or possibly that Xander was so aware of the creeps of the world. Xander rolled his eyes mentally. He'd been around teenagers for his entire life. It was stupid to think that they weren't having sex, or that there weren't creeps who would be perfectly happy to have it with them. The only thing that was effective with teenagers was being supportive of them, regardless of what he thought of their choices, and making sure that they were as safe as they'd let him make them. But Harry didn't say anything about it—he looked like he was too embarrassed to—and Xander wasn't about to start something over it. It wasn't like he couldn't take care of himself, after all, so there was nothing to be worried about.

Harry's car was, to put it nicely, a piece of shit. It looked like it was one step away from being held together with twine and duct tape, and made some funny noises when it was running. But it got the job done, so what did it matter?

Harry took Xander back to his apartment, a cozy basement with humming wards. The threshold wasn't too great, but it would serve the purpose for most beings thresholds mattered to. The wards were decently done, better than Xander had expected of any he found in this world. Harry had obviously had some training, and by the standards of this world it wasn't half-bad training, either. It certainly wasn't the blind keep-away backed up with way too much power that most beginner practitioners started out with. Of course, the wards weren't up to Xander's standards, but then again, very few wards were, even in his world. One of the few fields of magic that he'd thrown himself into wholeheartedly was ward architecture.

It was an extension of his construction work, in a way. First you built a building, and then you built the wards, and not only did they have to work in harmony, but they were built on a lot of similar principles. Failure at either one would make the other less effective. Well, okay, maybe not for civilian buildings: thresholds were usually enough to defend those against any of the usual problems, and civilian buildings weren't generally constructed with the intention of defending much against the supernatural. But all of the buildings built for SWCI or its allies, and even a good portion of the civilian buildings around the Cleveland Hellmouth, were built with the intention of making them as effective at staving off attacks by supernatural baddies. If they hadn't been, the wards would have been less effective. If the wards had been less effective, even with a perfect building, they would make the building less effective at keeping the supernatural baddies out. Xander found it fascinating how they worked together, enhancing their effects to a great degree when everything was the way it should be.

Wards were usually about balance. The more wards there were, the stronger they were, the more they attracted attention, and too much attention meant that things were attracted, mostly things that you would not want to hang out with. So most of the time, placing wards was a balancing act between making them strong enough to be effective and weak enough that they wouldn't attract more beings than could be handled. That had never been a concern at the SWCI headquarters on the Cleveland Hellmouth: they had been so well-known anyway, that they were already a target no matter what wards they put up, so they'd gone for the strongest wards they could manage and called the place the Bunker for its protection. Xander hadn't planned those wards; he hadn't been studying magic for long before they were placed. But along with other ward architects, he'd added onto them over the years, refined them to ensure that they were as good as they could get. They were barely recognizable as the same wards now.

Harry's wards weren't anywhere near as complex as the Bunker's, but then they hadn't been worked on for three centuries by the best ward architects in the business. For a kid who wasn't out of his twenties, they were good work. The balance was off the slightest bit, and judging by how little of the supernatural there was in this world, they might be a bit too strong to be inconspicuous, but they'd work well against the threats in this world, even if there were some that were a bit larger than any Xander had seen thus far.

Xander hadn't realized how much he'd missed the feeling of being behind wards until he stepped behind Harry's. It seemed like nobody in this world warded their buildings, not even the construction companies when they were building the things. It was just plain weird. How did they build without warding as they went along, anyway? Minor wards had been part of every blueprint Xander had ever seen, even the ones in Sunnydale where the building was being built specifically for some rather nasty demons. But here, the only places that had any wards at all were part of the supernatural community, and the only one that he'd found that was substantial was Harry's.

How could the lack of a supernatural community in this world lead to so many changes, in areas that Xander never would have expected to be affected by it? Some things were so basic, so essential to life, that they should be true anywhere, not completely different in another reality.

Harry went down into his subbasement to do some magic (he didn't specify what he was doing, and Xander didn't really care), and Xander settled into the least-interrupted sleep he'd had since he came to this disturbing world.

He was safe here, or as safe as he could be when he was surrounded by people who didn't know how to fight, didn't know any of the real nastiness out there, and were practically innocents despite their age. That safety came because of the complete tameness of this world, yes, but it also came from being behind Harry's rudimentary wards. They'd give a warning about anything that might decide to attack, even if they wouldn't be much good against anything that was actually likely to be able to harm Xander. And trapped behind these wards was just him and Harry. Harry, who didn't see him as a threat. Harry, who wasn't even into his thirties yet, barely begun on his magical education. Harry, who might be tall but wasn't used to fighting, not like anybody Xander used to live with.

Xander didn't trust anymore, not really; there had been too many people who had betrayed that trust. People who he would have never suspected would betray him. But neither did he suspect people of nefarious motives until they gave him reason to do so. He was just...neutral, reserving judgement until they proved themselves. Harry hadn't proven himself one way or another, which put him into the category of "safe enough" in Xander's mind. After all, most people could be trusted with most things. That didn't mean that he'd trust just anybody with spells that would end the world in the wrong hands, or his girls. But his life? He had no problem trusting people who were near-complete strangers power over something as valueless as his life. What would they do with it, anyway? He didn't even have a bounty on his head in this reality; he was as safe as he'd ever been, and so he slept as well as he ever did without somebody else there with him.

That wasn't to say that he slept completely peacefully; he couldn't do that, not alone and only sometimes when he was with somebody. But his nightmares were barely nightponies, nothing that would wake him up and make him unable to go back to sleep. None of the nasty ones that trapped him in a loop, unable to escape the horrors that kept repeating behind his eyes.

Oh yes, he was a conoisseeur of nightmares these days. But that was nothing new. He'd had his share from childhood, but they'd only really started to get spectacular when he learned about the supernatural. Back then, it had been Jesse crumbling to dust on his stake, or occasionally him crumbling to death on Jesse's stake and watching that horrible expression on his face. It had been trying to save Buffy from drowning, and being unable to do CPR because he was a vampire. It had been Graduation, watching people die and knowing that it had been him who had decided who would fight where, who had decided to have the class fight rather than just not showing up to graduation. Those nightmares were still there, still rose to the surface on occasion. But they'd been joined by more.

Horrors real and imagined, exactly the way they'd happened in real life or gone horribly wrong: he had them all on his rotation. And every time he thought that he'd seen it all, his subconscious came up with more to add to add to it. He was used to it by now. When he was in a good enough situation, and the nightmares weren't as bad as they could have been, he woke up from one, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

He did that a few times that afternoon before he finally woke up knowing that sunset had come.

***

 

By some miracle, Xander had actually been uninterrupted while he was sleeping, which was a rare occurrence. For some reason, people always seemed to want to interrupt whenever he was sleeping. He'd always halfway wondered if it was deliberate, especially since he knew he warned people about it at times, but most of the time it seemed like legitimate emergencies that had caused people to wake him up, so it had never been anything that he'd looked into too deeply. Honestly, he'd expected Harry to be an interrupter; he'd very obviously been skeptical about everything Xander had said that he hadn't had direct proof about, or learned from somebody else.

Xander pulled the trap door open and descended into the subbasement. There, he could see that Harry hadn't left him alone because he was being courteous; no, he'd gotten distracted by making potions. Xander would recognize that smell anywhere. Okay, not the physical smell, per se, because potions were so individual that they all smelled different, but the metaphysical one.

He wasn't sure why, but Xander always perceived potions metaphysically as on odor. It didn't happen for anything else; usually he just felt everything. But potions registered as a smell, always. Maybe the Hyena liked smelling potions, or something; whatever the case, he didn't like smelling potions, and any potions that he didn't make himself always smelled horrible to him. He gagged even being near them, and he couldn't even consider trying to gag one down. He was changed enough by the various things he'd gone through over the years that even the potions experts at SWCI had agreed that it might not work out well to try to use anybody else's potion.

It was pretty obvious that Harry liked his potions, or at least he liked sympathetic and symbolic magic: he'd made a good start at filling the room with potions ingredients and other symbolic artifacts. There wasn't anything too rare, not by Xander's standards, but then, Harry was just an individual, a PI who by the looks of things might be managing to keep his head above water but definitely wasn't doing well enough to stock his lab like SWCI's labs were, if those kinds of things could even be found in this world. He'd managed to make a good start on getting everything that would be reasonably cheap and local, more than Xander would have expected of a practitioner of Harry's age.

On a shelf was perched something that decidedly was not a potion ingredient. It was a skull, every inch of it carved with what was obviously magical symbols, and its eyes were glowing orange. Stacked around it were romance novels—actually, huh, Xander was pretty sure that one existed back home; he was sure he'd seen one of the girls reading it.

"Whatcha making?" Xander asked.

Harry jumped and spun around. "Hell's bells, kid, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

"I didn't realize you were so easily startled," Xander said.

"You could try making a little noise next time."

Xander frowned. "That's a bad habit to get into."

Harry rolled his eyes, obviously not in agreement but not willing to argue about it. Instead, he answered Xander's question. "I'm making a stealth potion and an escape potion."

"Really? Back home we don't normally do stealth potions because we're normally going up against things with really good senses—it just isn't worth it because they notice right away anyway. Unless you've figured out how to make a Greater Cloak of Invisibility potion? We had a guy who thought he was really close to figuring one out, but unfortunately he died before he could do it."

"A . . . Greater Cloak of Invisibility potion?"

"Yeah, you know, does everything you *really* want out of a stealth potion: hides you from all senses. Andrew was a really...*really* big geek, and he always named things accordingly."

"Ah. Well, this is just a stealth potion. It doesn't even do anything for the senses, but it makes people ignore the drinker."

"Oh, the SEP potion. We had that one, but it was never any use, so it was always just a practice potion, not one we actually used."

Harry snorted with laughter. "Let me guess, Andrew again?"

"Nah, despite completely embracing geekiness, Andrew was actually pretty practical when it came to his research. But, well, he was a pretty big part of the department for a long time, so everybody else there started to imitate him. At least the non-irritating parts. So what's the escape potion do?"

"Essentially it turns the drinker into wind for a few seconds, hopefully long enough for them to escape."

Xander whistled in appreciation. "Wow, now there's a useful potion. Might have saved a few lives if somebody had thought of that one."

"Saved a few lives?"

"Home wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I mean, it's a Major Nexus. And I lived at one of the locations where the walls between dimensions were the thinnest, so we had all sorts of trouble."

"Why didn't your family move away from them?"

"I'm not sure my parents had any idea. I mean, that would have meant putting down the bottle and looking around, and that seems a bit out of character for them. I don't know what I would have done if they had moved away, at least after I knew about the Hellmouth. Somebody's got to keep the demons from ending the world, you know? I mean, it's not like I was ever more than support staff, but what kind of demon fighting do you think there's going to be if the real fighters aren't kept supplied with donutty goodness?"

"Uh...I'm not sure that teenagers should be fighting demons, only in a support capacity or not."

Okay, Xander wasn't a teenager anymore, but he still found that statement to be highly insulting. "And what makes you think that teenagers don't have a right to fight for their own lives and their own world? What makes you think that you have any right to dictate who's allowed to help other people, and who's not? That's not some sort of exclusive war, that somehow ignores people because of their age. Saving the world is everybody's fight, if they want to get involved in it. There have been too many people who have willingly given their lives for the cause for me to allow you to degrade their contributions like that. My world would have ended thousands of times over, at the least, if it hadn't been for teenagers fighting demons. So don't you dare try to moralize at me about how teenagers have to be kept safe from the real world, because if it's their choice, you don't have any right to tell anybody that they're not allowed to save the world. Because it's not like it's not their world too."

The world would surely have been a different place if Slayers had only been Chosen as adults, but Xander can't say that he regretted any of it, except that Slayers used to not have a choice. Teenagers are better at adapting to the supernatural than adults are. They spend less time metaphorically running in circles freaking out when they learn that everything they thought was fiction is actually real. They whine and complain, but they're not so set in their ways that they refuse to do what is required, no matter how far it may be from what they really want to do. They can find the fun in the darkest of fights. They can work hard and party hard and be ready to go again the next day. They can celebrate the lives that were lost, rather than mourn the deaths that have taken their friends from them.

Adults would have made SWCI into a business, an organization, emphasis on the "organize" part. They would have made rules and regulations and stifled all of the creativity that might lurk in their agents and sucked what little fun there was out of it. And that just didn't work, not with the job that they did.

The Scoobies had learned that for themselves, had experienced the best and the worst of what there was in this job, and they'd built SWCI with the knowledge they had gleaned. From the beginning, SWCI had been run the way it needed to be run. The other organizations, started by adults and with only adults in them, had been slower to learn. They had seen the informality of SWCI, the way they played and laughed and joked, and they had taken it as unprofessionalism, as everybody in SWCI being too young for the job. But as time had gone by, and SWCI had phenomenally lower rates of major injuries and death than the adults' organizations, they had slowly come to the realization that maybe SWCI was doing something right, or at least less wrong than what they were doing.

There was no such thing as low rates of death in his job. Every night, they went out and fought beings that were stronger and faster, many of them with strange powers as well. But a large number of deaths were, unfortunately, caused by what could only be called burnout. It wasn't an easy job. People were lost, unimaginable situations were encountered over and over again, and there weren't a lot of people outside of the business who were willing to hear about it. Acting like you had a stick up your ass all the time, avoiding emotions of any sort, not celebrating the good and mourning the bad, those all contributed to the stress and even prevented the release of it. And when you got enough stress built up in a person, something was going to break. Sometimes it wasn't too bad, just letting those emotions out, but other times it happened at the wrong time and somebody ended up dead, or the person just plain broke under the strain, unable to take even a little bit more of everything that came with the job. "Organizations" didn't have many pressure valves. It wasn't acceptable to emote more than absolutely necessary, especially when you were on the clock. There were nondisclosure agreements preventing everything from being talked about outside of the organization. And there was a psychologist who couldn't really be talked to because they had the power to pull people off of active duty—and everybody in this line of work was some variety of crazy; you had to be, to not run away as fast and as far as you could manage.

Since the first Slayer, teenagers had contributed more to the further existence of his world than any other age group. These days, there were enough adults involved in the fight that the world would probably be safe without the teenagers, but no matter what world he was in, Xander wouldn't allow their contributions to be ignored. He wouldn't allow them to be shoved off to the side like they had nothing to contribute to the fight. He'd been a teenager once, and although he might not have had much to contribute back then, he didn't know what he would have done if he had gotten seriously told that he couldn't be a part of the fight. He hadn't joined on a whim; he'd lost Jesse to that vampire. If he'd been shoved to the side, he might have joined the fight anyway, and on his own he knows that he wouldn't have done anybody any good or even lasted for long before he was killed too, and maybe vamped as well.

"Wait, you chose to fight demons?"

"Well, yeah, that's how it works. Either you have a bullseye on your back for one reason or another, so neither you nor anybody else has a choice about you fighting, or you choose to fight, or you're prey who at the most can hope you're able to defend yourself."

"And you chose to?"

"My best friend since diapers, Jesse, got turned into a vampire. Of course I chose to. I would have chosen to fight even if I hadn't been part of a group."

"Why would him getting turned into a vampire make you start fighting demons?"

Xander quickly turned the facts over in his head. "Oh, right, the whole different dimensions thing. You probably have different types of vampires here, if you have them at all. Back home, one of the types of vampires is...well, it's the classic horror story vampire there, but I don't know what you've got here. They drink blood to survive. If they drink a human's blood and give their blood to the human, the human's soul goes away and the human turns into a vampire. Killed by wooden stakes, fire, beheading, sunlight, and holy water taken internally. With the soul gone, they have access to all of the human's memories and in a few instances some amount of their personality, but they're not the person they were before getting vamped. So by vamping Jesse, they killed him."

"Those sound a lot like Black Court vampires," Harry said.

"Except for the rotting flesh," the being in the skull interjected.

"Yeah, no rotting flesh there, they'd never be able to get prey if their flesh was rotting."

"Are there a lot of them in your world?"

Xander snorted. "Well, yeah, they're everywhere. All of the hunting organizations I know of do nightly sweeps to keep the population as low as they can, but it never makes much of an impact."

"Huh, weird. The Black Court's almost extinct because so many people know how to kill them."

"Wow. I wish we could have had that sort of success. But no matter how many we killed, there were always more."

"So how'd that lead into killing demons? Vampires aren't demons, and if there's so many of them I'd think you'd try to focus on them instead of splitting your concentration between vampires and demons."

"Well, yeah, normally the phrase is 'demons, vampires, and creatures of darkness', but technically vampires are demonic spirits infecting corpses. Besides, that's a bit of a mouthful to say every time, so we just shorten it to demons because there's a lot of stuff that doesn't quite fit under that umbrella but is still clearly something we need to deal with."

"Vampires are demons?"

"That kind is. The other kind isn't, we don't think. But we don't have any evidence one way or another, so...maybe."

"The other kind?"

"No big problems with sunlight, paralyzed by dead man's blood, and killed by decapitation. They're a lot rarer; it takes more for them to reproduce, and before I ever got in the business there was a big effort to wipe them out. They keep their souls, so as long as they can manage the hunger they're not as bad as the other kind."

"You just call them both vampires?"

"Well, I think that technically they're supposed to be spelled differently, but nobody ever bothers except in academic papers. It's usually pretty clear in conversation which kind you're talking about."

"Here, there are three Courts of vampires. Well, maybe four, but I don't know anything about the Jade Court."

"That sounds very...organized," Xander said.

"I think it's probably less organized than it sounds, but they have to have somebody in charge so that they can be signatories of the Unseelie Accords."

"The what? Wait, tell me about the vampires first."

"Um. There's the Black Court, which sounds a lot like that first type of vampires of yours. The White Court feed on sexual energy."

"Like succubi and incubi?"

"Ah, I don't know what you mean by succubi and incubi, and it seems like it would be a good idea to clarify since apparently even your world's vampires are different."

"Succubi and incubi don't really have anything interesting about them. There's half a dozen ways of killing them, but most people just go for decapitation when they have to. They don't usually kill, just give somebody the night of their life, drain the sexual energy, and move on. The only times they kill, it's deliberate, or it's some kid who wandered out of their enclaves before it had enough control."

"The White Court's a lot the same, I think. Maybe even the same species. They're stronger and faster than humans—"

"But what isn't?"

"And feed off of sexual energy. If they find their true love before they feed for the first time, they don't get the powers, but since White Court vampires are allergic to true love, the trade-off's worth it since it'd be kind of hard to be with somebody if you couldn't touch them."

Xander stifled a snigger. "Trust me, we've run into that kind of person-specific allergy star-crossed lovers thing before, and there are ways around that problem. It was brainstormed for months by everybody where I used to work, and the people I used to work with are...let's just say 'very creative' and leave it at that, because trust me, you do not want to hear all of the solutions that were come up with. But it would suck to have to resort to them."

"So do you think they're the same?"

"Nah," Xander said. "Incubi and succubi are built to do love and sex separately. Yeah, some of them do them together, but that's a matter of choice and not because of their biology or whatever."

Harry asked a few more questions about incubi, succubi, and vampires, but they were eventually interrupted by the growling of his stomach.

Harry took Xander to a place he hadn't stumbled across before in his travels through the city, a place called Mac's that was obviously connected to the supernatural community. Everything was laid out to break up excess magic. Xander just couldn't figure out why the owner had bothered. Sure, it was a good idea if there were going to be large amounts of magic over a long period of time (and it was a place where magic was not intended to be used) but...here? Harry was the only person Xander had met here who had a large amount of power at his command. Everybody else, even crammed together in stressful situations, wouldn't cause the problems that came with large amounts of magic; they were just too weak. It made sense to build this way atop Hellmouths, where there was so much ambient magic that even in a room full of Blanks, unshielded electronics were likely to blow without any help, and even heavy duty Tesla Compensators didn't last longer than a year before they had to be replaced. Here it just seemed superfluous.

Had this area seem more activity in the past, or was somebody a seer to know that it would be needed in the future? That was the only real explanation for it that Xander could think of. Mac himself was one of those strong and silent types, about as loquacious as Oz, so Xander couldn't really ask him about it. Well, he could, but it was always kind of painful watching Oz types give answers that required much explanation. As much as he admired how few words Oz used when teaching the pups, not everybody was as skilled at getting novels worth of speeches across with no more than three or four words in as many hours.

The food was really good. More meat than Xander was used to, but Chicago hadn't become a garden city like Cleveland had in the War; they were still bringing in all of their food from elsewhere, and didn't have any reason to nearly become vegetarians like the Clevelanders had been forced to do (there had been no room to raise animals in the city, and it had been too expensive and difficult to import as much meat during the War as they had once eaten). Even if he wasn't used to it anymore, though, Xander would eat anything, and this food was good. Harry seemed to especially enjoy the beer, so Xander noted it for the next Sunnydale Remembrance Day when he'd get drunk remembering everybody he'd lost. He didn't care what the beer tasted like otherwise. After his parents, and his brush with alcoholism not long after SWCI was founded, he wouldn't drink any other time, because he knew that it would be all too easy to fall into a bottle and never crawl his way back out.

Sunnydale Remembrance Day was an exception. He had lost too much over the years to not allow himself one day a year to fully express his grief over them, and what better day than Sunnydale Remembrance Day, when he could also contemplate the crater that had swallowed his hometown? Well, maybe he couldn't do that in person here. But he did have pictures, somewhere in his Bag of Holding. It wouldn't be a proper Sunnydale Remembrance Day, but being adaptable to changing circumstances was the only reason he was still alive. And there weren't many circumstances in which he couldn't find some way to give a wake to those he'd lost.

Deep within him, there was a deep pit of despair over everything that had happened to him. He'd lost friends, he'd lost frenemies. He'd lost lovers. He'd lost betrayers. He'd lost his school, his hometown, and finally his world. There was enough in any one of those things to crush him beneath the weight of his despair and make him unable to ever get back up again...if he let it. He couldn't let it. He couldn't let everybody who had ever thought that he'd never amount to anything, who thought that he couldn't handle what he was getting himself into, be right. He couldn't let them *win*. No matter how much he sometimes wanted to lie down and never get back up again, he couldn't let himself do it.

It was stupid that sometimes Xander's neverending stubbornness was the only thing that kept him going. For every bad thing in his life, there had been a thousand good ones that equaled it. He should be living for them. And sometimes he did. But sometimes it seemed like no matter how much good there was to balance or even tip the scales, the bad weighed impossibly more. And on those days, he got up just the same as he always did, and put on the same clothes that he always did, and went out into the world to do the same things that he always did in the same way that he always did them. But on those days, he was dead inside, not doing anything more than going through the motions because if they were things that didn't have to be done, he wouldn't be doing them. On those days, his life felt like a trap.

How long would he live, anyway? The Sunnydale class of '99 had been dwindling, more of his classmates dying every year. In the business, the only one close to him in age was Faith, although they'd started out with many more. Oz had been around, but he wasn't a fighter. Other than that, everybody else was dead.

It had been bad enough then, when he had been slowing down and getting injured more and more as time went on, when he had been surrounded by proof that his life, too, would end, and that it probably wouldn't be much longer (but he'd thought that for the past three centuries). Now? Now he was young again, whole and in a reality that didn't seem to have much going on. Even Harry was older than he was, now. And even if Xander didn't use one more thaum of magic, he'd still been exposed to enough that there was no getting over the slow aging of those who used magic.

It wasn't fair! What had he ever done, to be given this much time in his life when others, so much more deserving, had had theirs cut short? What had he ever done to be sent to this reality, that would be a reward for some but was only torture for him? He'd be hesitant to ascribe everything to the actions of some deity that hated him, except that he had seen so much over his life. He'd been given incontrovertible proof a thousand times over that gods existed, and most of those times it had been pretty clear that they despised him.

Prophecy Breaker, they called him, as if it was the only title that mattered. As if anything else he did in his life paled in comparison to breaking a few prophecies, and bending more. And no matter who or what else was around, they attacked *him*. It was almost something he was proud of, pissing off every god he'd ever encountered, but it might have been the thing that got him into this situation in the first place.

Most gods were about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face, but there were some who knew how to stay under the radar when taking their revenge. But most of *those* gods were tricksters, and actually tricksters didn't tend to have much of a problem with him, not compared to the other gods anyway. They appreciated how he broke things up with humor and didn't approach all of his problems the direct way, at least the ones that weren't your garden variety monster hunts. It could have been one of them, of course; they were gods, it would be ridiculous for them to think the same way as humans, and who knew what their motives were for half the things they did? But Xander thought it was more likely that it was one of the other types of gods. *those* all hated him, and many of them with good reason. There just weren't many of them that were subtle enough to do something like this rather than attacking him directly (which had never worked in the past). Unless one of them was subtle enough that nobody knew they were subtle . . . hmm . . .

Whichever one of them it was, he couldn't understand what they expected to get out of it. He wasn't at SWCI anymore, it was true, but he was hardly an essential part of the organization. He'd been the head of SWCI for a long time, but it wasn't like there wasn't a method of selecting the new head already in place. They wouldn't be hurt much by his absence. He wasn't dead, which Xander would have thought would be their motivation; it seemed to be one that was popular with all of his enemies. And if they could manage to get him sent to another reality, they could manage to get him killed either by their hand or somebody else's. No, he was alive, well, in another reality, deaged, and bored out of his mind. Perhaps that was actually their goal: to somehow make him hate his life so much that he ended it himself.

Weren't there some religions that said that people who committed suicide would be punished eternally? Perhaps that was their plan. Perhaps they thought that he was a member of one of those religions, that he'd hate his life on this side of the portal so much that he'd commit suicide and be punished for it. If that was their plan, they hadn't done their research. *His* religion didn't say anything about suicide, insofar as he even had a religion.

He didn't really have *belief*, per se; he didn't have to. He'd *seen* so much that he didn't *have* to believe anything, he just knew it. But he went along with the wiccans more than anything else. They didn't have strange religious rules about which animals you couldn't eat or the clothes you had to wear or how you cut your clothes. To them, it was all good, as long as it was *good*. Improve the world as much as you could, and minimize the ways that you made it worse, that was his kind of a philosophy.

There were wiccans who would be horrified at him. There were wiccans who *were* horrified at him, who said that anybody who went around hunting sentient beings like he did wasn't a true wiccan, that a true wiccan would only kill in self-defense, and maybe not even then. Xander liked to think that every patrol and hunt he went on fell under "self defense and defense of others", but he understood why they didn't agree with him. He wasn't what they meant by wiccan, and honestly he didn't really mind. He didn't want to be their type of wiccan either.

Sometimes he wondered about those other religions. He'd run into some angels once, and while they might not be as bad as they'd apparently used to be (there was a reason the Angel War had happened, after all), they were still dicks with wings. They'd told him that when he died, he certainly wouldn't be going to their Heaven. And he'd been told time and time again by the demons who were from the Hell that was a counterpart to the Angels' Heaven (you had to be specific about these things, as there were so many hell dimensions linked to his former home) that *they* didn't want him, because they were afraid of what he'd do Down There. Taking over was apparently the least of it.

How could they all care about one person that much? Seriously, did they just have nothing else to do but sit around talking about what he'd do if they allowed him into their little worlds? He didn't even *want* to go to their little worlds. There was nothing interesting there, and either way you were stuck with eternity. Maybe you weren't really living forever, but it was still existing forever, aware of what was happening. That didn't sound nice to him, no matter what the perks were; he wouldn't have been happy with that if it had meant an eternity of hunting, with nobody dying. Forever wasn't something he wanted; it was in fact very close to being his worst nightmare.

Reincarnation, that might be nice: forget everything that went before, and you wouldn't know that you were actually living forever in a bunch of different bodies. But what sounded better was just ceasing to exist. Yeah, yeah, there was that whole conservation of matter and energy thing, so it wouldn't technically be ceasing to exist, but getting spread out in everything that existed, divided up to the smallest component parts of his body and soul, that would be as close to completely ceasing to exist as could actually happen in a world with actual physics. He wouldn't be him anymore. He wouldn't be alive. He would just be atoms and tiny little bits of energy, not a person at all. It sounded restful in a way that he couldn't ever have when he was alive in any way.

His mind was wandering. That was all right; it wasn't like he had it on a leash or anything. His mind could wander wherever it wanted. He'd handled it for his whole life; he'd learned how not to miss anything even when he was distracted. The conversation wasn't anything major, anyway. There weren't any huge supernatural threats out there, or at least not anything that Harry felt he needed to hear about. Well, Xander was kind of making an assumption there, because there might be something big on the horizon and Harry might just not want to tell him for some reason. But if it was big, Xander knew enough people that he'd learn about it sooner or later; people loved a good bit of gossip, and Xander was betting that even the small things were news around here (not that they hadn't gossiped about them back home, but that had always been more for a bit of light entertainment rather than because they were thought to be actual dangers to anybody hooked into SWCI's highly efficient gossip network). But when the conversation turned to Xander's education, he figured that there really must not be anything going on.

"I'm not from around here," Xander said. "And my driver's license says that I'm a 321 year old man with one eye who lives in the state of Greater Cleveland, which doesn't even exist in this world. One way or another, my education doesn't matter."

"But you've got to go to school!" Harry protested. "You're only fourteen, don't mess your life up before you've even gotten started."

Xander rolled his eyes at Harry's insistence. "I don't see the point. Why would I ever need a diploma?"

"If you're going to live with me, you're going to go to school," Harry said.

When had Xander ever agreed to live with Harry? He'd just slept on his couch for a couple of hours, last he checked. But he supposed it would be more comfortable than sleeping on the streets, and it would give him good access to the only people in this world who seemed to know much about magic. So he started thinking logistics. "Okay, fine, it's not like I don't have enough time. But I doubt you're thinking this through."

"What is there to think about?" Harry asked. "Look, I was in foster care for a while, and the man who adopted me..." He shuddered. "He was my first magic teacher. And he shouldn't have been allowed near kids. I don't want you to have to go through the things I've gone through."

Xander didn't know what exactly Harry had gone through, but he'd seen enough similar situations to have some idea of what might have happened. And, yeah, that wasn't a situation that he'd leave a kid open to, even back in his world. It didn't mean that Harry had thought it through, but it did mean that he wasn't likely to change his mind once he learned a little bit about what Xander was going to have to do to make all of their paperwork problems disappear. "I see what you're saying. And I'm guessing you're not going to change your mind about it, but we need to at least talk about this."

"Okay..."

"First. I don't legally exist in this world. Not a huge problem at fourteen, not like it would be if I was older, but I'm going to need to establish some sort of history for myself because teenagers don't just appear from midair." He reconsidered. "Not usually, anyway."

"And how are you going to do that?"

Xander shot him a look. "How do you think I'm going to do it? I'm warning you, I don't think that there are any legal methods of doing it."

"But..."

"No matter what, I'm not going to have a legal birth certificate from this world," Xander said. "And I need to have one if I'm doing anything above the table, which seems to be how you want me to do things."

"Of course!"

Xander shrugged. "I don't really care either way, but I'll go along with it if you do care. But I can't do every little thing completely legally, because your government doesn't know how to handle people who aren't from the same reality. So I have to make it think that I do come from here, which means at least a birth certificate. I'll have to check what else I'll need to get, because that's probably not the only thing. *My* world never needed all this for people who just joined it, or just started living as humans, so I don't know what all I'll need."

"How are you going to get a birth certificate and whatever else you need?"

"I doubt you want to know the details, because trust me, I know your type, and you wouldn't be able to keep from interfering even though it's just a set of papers. Suffice it to say that I know some people who can get me some without any problem, and they're not going to gouge me on the price."

"And . . . they'll hold up?"

"I'm not going to settle for something that won't hold up under scrutiny, but I don't think that a birth certificate's going to have much of a problem passing for the real thing, and I know that the people I know have got to know who's the best in the business."

"Uh, good?" Harry didn't sound too enthusiastic about it, but at least he wasn't arguing, even about Xander not telling him everything. Xander made a mental note to make sure he wasn't followed when he went to see John. "Is that it?"

"The birth certificate's just the paperwork part of it. The tricky part of it's going to be convincing people that I belong with you."

"What do you mean?"

"Harry. You can't be this stupid. You live in an apartment with one bed. A guy in his twenties takes some teenager off of the streets and into his one-bedroom apartment, what does that look like?"

Harry flushed red and he started stammering. "But I wouldn't—I'm not—I'm STRAIGHT!"

Xander rolled his eyes. "You know that, and I'm willing to take that on faith, but some random person? People aren't that naive about situations that look as bad as this one does, no matter how much it's on the up-and-up. I mean, people are sheep and probably wouldn't actually report it, but you wouldn't have any more jobs from the police, at the least."

"So what...how?"

"The easy way would probably be claiming that we're related somehow. Obviously not father and son, unless you got started *really* early, but half-brothers or cousins or something."

"The math doesn't work out for us to be brothers, and I don't have any cousins," Harry said, obviously seriously considering the idea.

"Yeah, well, as I was about to say, that's not something I'm willing to do."

"What? Why not?"

"I haven't exactly had the best family experiences in the world," Xander said. "I moved out of my parents' basement once, I'm not letting anybody else into that position over me again because I don't really believe in good parents."

"Not everybody's like that," Harry said.

"I know that intellectually, and I've even seen good parents before, but that's still not comfortable with."

"Okay, you said that was the easy way. What's the hard way?"

"Work it out somehow with foster care. I don't know if we can do that; this isn't a situation we ever had to deal with back home, and anyway the laws were different there."

"So let's say that it is an option. What would that mean?"

"Well, they have some regulations that have to be followed. I don't know exactly what they are, because again with the different realities thing, but I think one of them's that I'd need my own bedroom. I don't care one way or another, but they do, and they definitely care about me having my own bed, so we'd have to squeeze one in somewhere."

Harry looked baffled. "Where would I fit another bed into my apartment?"

"The subbasement, maybe? I don't know. I'd say it might be alright if we said you sleep on the couch, but I think that would be too fishy-looking to stand, especially since our purpose is to make it look *less* fishy."

"They're probably not going to be too happy about the candles either," Harry said.

"Yeah, what's up with that anyway?"

"Magic makes things go wrong, the newer it is the worse it is."

"Well yeah, but it seems kind of extreme to just banish modern lighting."

"I have too much magic. I'd be replacing the bulbs at least once a day in my apartment."

"And you didn't just fix the problem instead?"

"Fix it how? My magic's a part of me, kid. I can't just stop it."

"Yeah, but it's not too hard to upgrade the Compensators, or even build new ones if you need to. It isn't necessary to just accept bad Compensators."

"Upgrade the Compensators? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, right, this world is really light on magic. I guess there isn't very much need for heavy duty Compensators here, so they might not even exist unless one of you wizards decided to come up with them."

"I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"That's okay, you don't really need to. Don't worry, I'll upgrade the Compensators on all of your stuff and you won't have problems anymore, and nobody will have any reason to complain about that."

"Uh, good? I guess."

"Excellent! I'll go get a start on getting us all official...if you don't object too badly? It's going to mean somebody poking into your life, maybe more than one person."

"I can't say I'm entirely happy about it, but...that's fine."

"Good. See you in the morning, then."

***

 

Xander had misled Harry a little bit, although not intentionally. It was late enough that he wasn't likely to be able to actually get a hold of John; the criminals might work into the night here, but John was the big boss, and most places weren't like SWCI, as Xander had learned after years of Generals and Presidents being upset at getting interrupted when they were off the clock (they'd actually been pretty good at pretending that they weren't upset, especially since he never called about anything that wasn't important—few of them were interesting enough for him to bother with otherwise—but it had been impossible for them to completely hide it). Other places, it was the people at the bottom who were busy all the time, and the people at the top who were able to leave work early and go on vacation more than they were required to for mental health. So no, Xander wasn't technically heading out to get a hold of John that night, because he doubted he'd be able to—although he hadn't realized that until after he'd left Harry's presence. Working at SWCI had gotten him accustomed to being able to get into whoever he needed to, whenever he needed to do so. He needed to remember that things weren't the same here. Here he was just a nobody, with no right or reason to expect others to do things because he thought that they were necessary.

Tonight he'd do what he usually did at night, albeit a bit more rested than he usually was. Patrol (not that there was anything to find around here), talking to people, and making friends. He could stop by the dojo, too, while the night was still young; they kept late hours sometimes, and it was always nice to help the kids get better at fighting.

This city was just full of human crime. Xander wasn't naive, he knew that it happened, but he interrupted no fewer than three muggings that night. Three! That was unbelievable, as far as he was concerned. In his entire career, he'd only run into two in his own world, and there had only been a handful that had been stopped by anybody else in the same line of work. Now, granted, they went out at night, when anybody with any sort of street smarts was not on the streets back home, and around here night seemed to be the preferred time to commit crimes. But even so, Xander was pretty sure that there were a lot more human crimes taking place in this city than anywhere back home. Maybe he'd just gotten lucky, coming across the muggings when he did? He'd have to ask Murphy about that, whenever he saw her next.

Speaking of Murphy, she'd have to be notified of the situation, so that she wouldn't start laughing at the wrong time or something if somebody asked her about Harry and Xander's relationship. Plus it was only courteous to tell her as soon as possible: she seemed like she worked with Harry a lot, so it would be best to avoid giving her any surprises by not telling her. And Murphy knew that Xander wasn't a teenager. She'd definitely think that something was odd if Xander didn't explain the situation to her.

He didn't know if Harry was close enough to anybody else that they'd need to be told. Xander, of course, didn't really have anybody in this world who would care much about his living arrangements, but he'd tell everybody he'd made friends with anyway, if only to explain why he couldn't be around all the time anymore. At the least, Harry expected him to go to school, which would take up all of the time between his morning sleep and his afternoon sleep. And from what Xander had gathered, families that weren't as dysfunctional as his, Willow's and Jesse's spent at least some time together on a regular basis, so he'd have to spend some time doing stuff with Harry (and Bob).

He should still have the whole night to himself most of the time. Harry seemed like he spent his nights sleeping, like most civilians did, not out and fighting the forces of darkness like Xander did (or tried to do, here). Xander would probably have to put up with Harry trying to make him change his sleeping patterns, at least once, because wasn't that what parents and guardians did, try to change you and force you to do whatever they wanted you to do? Xander was not looking forward to that fight. He'd first been forced to adopt this sleeping pattern back when he'd been in high school the first time around: with patrol and research every night, and school every day, the Scoobies had taken their sleep whenever they could get it. His sleep schedule had gotten more irregular when he'd been in Africa: he'd still had to be awake at night, but he didn't always need to be awake during the day, so he hadn't kept to his usual sleep schedule. It had only gotten back to what was normal for him and most of the rest of the people in the business when he'd had to start being SWCI's usual liaison with other organizations (especially the civilian ones) and governments. Apparently he'd been the only person with SWCI at the time who could explain things at a level that the civilians could understand, and not make SWCI look bad while doing it (Buffy had known how to explain things to civilians, but she didn't always turn her dumb blonde act off, and that did not make SWCI look good, no matter how much older she was than the previous holder of the record of longest-lived slayer). Civilians and governments didn't like to operate at night. They didn't like to operate early in the morning. The only time they really *wanted* to operate were normal business hours, and they wouldn't make any exceptions for anything short of an emergency.

He was in luck, and the dojo was still open that night. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, they closed earlier than this, but lately they'd been staying open later. It would be kind of conceited for Xander to think that it stayed open because they were waiting for him, but, well, he kind of did think that. His primary student, the supposedly world-class guy, was always there if the dojo stayed open late, and a lot of the time there was a crowd of observers who Xander usually ordered into practicing too; a lot of them were familiar to him by now, but there were always a few different faces every time he taught. It wasn't anything he wasn't used to. Even though he wasn't one of the usual instructors at SWCI, he'd done a few turns, and at SWCI the classes were always changing.

At SWCI, beyond the beginner classes everybody could take any class they felt like. They were always drop-in, with no real schedule beyond making the participants better in whatever way they could improve. The best of the best tended to go to classes together, or spar together in their spare time, but there were always a few students who were barely started on learning to fight, and a few that were much better. Of course, the vast majority fell somewhere in the center. But in any class, there'd be people who were experienced sparring with people who were inexperienced, so that the experienced ones could help the inexperienced ones and nobody would fall into the trap of thinking that everybody was at the same skill level as everybody else. They couldn't plan the classes any other way, anyway; nobody had the exact same schedule, and there were frequent interruptions of any schedule that was made, by injuries, death, apocalypses, and even happier occasions such as weddings. And SWCI was full of movement. People rotated around to different headquarters, to different cities and countries, often. There were always new faces at the classes and in the halls.

So Xander was used to teaching this way. From comments made here and by people who had studied martial arts before coming to SWCI, that wasn't the way it usually was in martial arts classes anywhere other than SWCI. Most teachers liked to know exactly who they were dealing with, what their skills and weaknesses were, before they accepted them into a class, and they liked to ensure that they were getting paid for their efforts.

Xander liked teaching people without knowing much about them. He didn't have any preconceptions of what they could or couldn't do before they stepped foot into his classroom, just like with any opponent he had to fight. The students in his classes weren't used to fighting with or against each other; they'd have to do the same. He thought that it made better experience for using the skills in the real world.

Of course, he had no idea where the students here came from. This wasn't SWCI, to have random people shuffling around the branches; as far as he knew, this dojo didn't have any others associated with it. But honestly he didn't care very much. His students might not be up to his standards, but they weren't complete beginners either; other than that, it didn't really matter to him.

He was actually pretty pleased with his regulars. They started out with what passed for a high level in this world, and they were pretty good at learning new techniques. His only complaint was that they didn't like the weapons work, saying that they wouldn't have much use for it. He supposed it was possible; with the standards so low here, there wasn't much that would require weapons to deal with, so he only made it take up half of his classes, rather than the larger portion he'd allocate to it back home. That wasn't enough to placate them entirely, but he wasn't going to budge farther than that. Hand-to-hand was good as far as it went, but a lot of the time its only real purpose was to give you the time to get to a weapon, and he wasn't going to cripple his students because they didn't like weapons.

A few of them were concerned about weapons because anything they could legally carry wouldn't be large enough to be of much use, which was a valid complaint for anybody who cared about the law, so he spent some time teaching them how to improvise weapons when they had to. True, they wouldn't have any use for stakes here (if the Black Court was rare even by this reality's standards, the chance of them running into one was approaching nothing), but while stakes were commonly improvised back home, that wasn't the only weapon that could be improvised without much time. Anything long could give you a bit of extra reach, put some distance between you and your opponent and make them unable to reach you while you were perfectly able to reach them. And if they decided to try to level the playing field and use a weapon of their own, few people in this reality really knew how to fight with a weapon. Knowing how to use a weapon would put you on top pretty much by default.

He got challenged about improvising weapons that night. You couldn't find one fast enough during a fight, his challenger said, so what was the point?

"Okay," Xander said. "Where would you be most likely to be attacked in this city? I don't think it's this dojo." They'd taken a little trip out into an alley. "So I'm walking along this alley, and I get attacked. You three, attack me."

They'd gotten used to him by this point, so they didn't hesitate and attacked. Xander kicked one of them back into the other two, and picked up a trash can lid before they could recover. When they had recovered, he didn't have much trouble fighting them off, using the lid as a shield. His point was proven, but he didn't stop there. "This isn't the only weapon in this alley. Open question: what can you use as a weapon here?" A few of them named objects lying in the alley. "Exactly, you're far from being weaponless no matter where you are, at least if you look at things the right way. Anything you can pick up and throw can be a weapon, even if it's something like a bag of trash. You can use the walls and ground as a weapon. If you're wearing a jacket, you can take that off and use that if you're fast enough. Homework time: go somewhere you normally go, whether it's in your home or at your work or somewhere you like to go or somewhere along your commute, and figure out what you can use as a weapon there. For extra credit, do the same for things you normally have on your person, whether that's your keys or your clothes, and do the same thing." He didn't assign homework often, but when he did it was always the end of the class; it would be kind of unfair to expect everybody to remember it otherwise.

His student, the one he'd started this for, thanked him for the lesson. These guys were always so *respectful*, it was kind of creepy. They didn't just throw a thanks over their shoulder as they were leaving, they actually came up to him and thanked him personally. He'd tried to break them of the habit, tell them that it wasn't necessary, but they still did it anyway. At least they didn't get too weird about it, not like in some of those classes he'd observed. He didn't need people bowing to him, especially over something as minor as teaching a class. But at least it gave him a good opportunity to say anything that he hadn't wanted to say during the class for whatever reason. That usually wasn't much, because correcting his students in the midst of the class gave everybody else the opportunity to make sure that they weren't doing the same thing, and let them know to watch for that error in the future even if they weren't making it at that moment.

This time it gave him the opportunity to let his student know about his changed situation. Nothing was finalized quite yet, of course, but if it went through it had a chance of disrupting these classes, so he had to be told.

***

 

 

The rest of the night Xander spent wandering around—technically he was patrolling, but he had to admit that he wasn't likely to find anything, so really it was just wandering. The usual nightowls were out, and Xander checked in with them, although he wasn't close enough to any of them to tell them his news yet, before it had been finalized or even really set in motion.

The guys out at the warehouses were busy. When he wandered in, they were in the middle of some sort of business deal with some people Xander didn't know, pointing weapons at the guys on the other side of the exchange.

"Oh, you're busy," Xander said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow night?"

"Nah, not tomorrow night," one of the warehouse guys said. "We're not doing anything then. Night after next."

"Who is this?" the leader of the other set of guys exclaimed indignantly. "What is he doing here?"

"Him?" the guy everybody called Snake because of his huge snake tattoo said. "That's Xander."

"He hangs around sometimes," one of the other guys added. "Don't worry about him."

"See you later, Xander."

"Bye, guys." Xander left them to their negotiations. He'd been kind of worried about the guys, because they didn't seem to have any friends outside of their little group, and it just wasn't a good idea to only be friendly with a dozen guys. You never knew where you might find friends, and the guys hadn't been looking. He'd been working on getting them to be more social, and look! Now they had some new friends. He just hoped those guys didn't still live in Russia, because he wasn't entirely sure all of the warehouse guys could read, and he doubted any of them would be good at being somebody's pen pal.

***

 

When morning rolled around, Xander took his usual morning nap before heading out to find John.

The card John had given him hadn't had anything other than John's name and a phone number and email address, but since this wasn't Cleveland the public phones surely didn't have heavy duty Tesla Compensators, so using the phone number wasn't necessarily going to be successful. But that was all right; Xander had been around for long enough to know where John usually spent his days. He wasn't as predictable as some people, because routine was the silent killer that was second only to mimes, and he could afford more than one location, but he still only had a few preferred locations that he rotated through. If he wasn't at Executive Priority, somebody there would know where he was or at least be able to get a message to him.

Executive Priority was even more disturbing to see than some of those dojos Xander had toured. It was purportedly a gym, but it was like the place wasn't even designed for real use! It was full of gleaming machines and shiny mirrors, and a *spa*, for crying out loud! Why would anybody even bother? It didn't make sense until he saw the employees, each of them just as sexy as any of his girls but without that edge that said they could defend themselves—some of them had had some rudimentary training, but they'd never had to use it when it was life or death. It wasn't a *gym*, it was a "gym", made for prostitution and not working out. Dilemma solved, Xander proceeded to the receptionist's desk.

"Hello, welcome to Executive Priority. How can I help you?" she said, obviously anticipating having to turn Xander away.

"Hi," Xander said. "John Marcone said to call him, but I thought I'd see if he's in, instead?"

"Mr. Marcone doesn't see just anybody," she said.

"He gave me his card," Xander said, fishing it out as evidence. "I know that it's not a lot to go on, but I'd appreciate it if you'd tell him that I'd like to talk to him."

She took the card and inspected it suspiciously. "I suppose I could see if he's willing to see you."

"That's all I can ask."

"And your name is...?"

"Xander Harris," Xander said. "I could talk to Hendricks, if John's too busy to see me."

She pursed her lips unhappily at something—he had no idea what. But she handed the business card to an assistant to take into the back anyway. "Wait there," she said, pointing at the chairs nearby.

It didn't take long before her assistant hurried back out and whispered in her ear.

"Mr. Marcone will see you now," she said, sounding much less displeased than she had a minute ago.

John's office was...officey. What? Xander wasn't an office connoisseur or anything, to describe all the details. You've seen one office, you've seen them all: desk, chairs, plants or no plants, infernal machine or no infernal machine.

"Xander!" John said. "I thought you weren't going to call."

"I didn't," Xander joked, then got down to business. "I need a favor. Or...possibly multiple favors, I don't know."

"What is it?"

"Well, you know, I've been on my own since I got here—bored out of my mind except for that bit of fun on that first day—so I haven't needed any paperwork. You know, birth certificate and whatever else I'm supposed to have. I mean, I have the ones from back home, but they're not really going to work for anything I need to do here, since nobody's going to believe that I'm 321 years old, with one eye, and live in Greater Cleveland state, since apparently it doesn't exist here."

"I see your problem. But you seemed reluctant to have anything to do with me the last time we met. What changed your mind? You can get a birth certificate and social security card from any forger. Why come to me?"

"Well, I kind of got talked into staying with Harry Dresden. I'm not sure how much of the rumors are true, but I'm assuming you at least know *of* him."

"I know Mr. Dresden."

"So, Harry works with the police, so he's kind of got to keep everything above board. I mean, I don't know how much of his work is from them, but I don't think he's doing well enough to have no problem without them. Plus, he's a white knight type, and the only magic practitioner in the city with much power; it's better if he's notified of the kinds of things the cops notice, sooner rather than later because if the cops notice it it's usually pretty bad. So everything's got to be as legal as it can be when dealing with situations that the law doesn't really cover. And from the outside, it looks like I'm a fourteen year old homeless boy moving in with a guy in his twenties...not something that sounds good at all."

"So how do you plan to solve that problem?"

"I figure, if we could somehow work it out so that he was my foster parent, it'd be as good as it could get. I'll go to school and sleep in his apartment, which will at least be more comfortable than where I have been sleeping, and he'll satisfy his need to protect me from living on the streets."

"I am not certain if that situation would be an allowable foster care situation."

"Yeah, that's kind of the sticking point. I don't think Harry really knows enough about foster care to know what's possible and what isn't, even though he said he spent some time in the system. And I'm almost entirely certain that if we get *too* underhanded in setting this up, Harry won't be even as accepting as he is now—I've only told him I'd need forged paperwork, and implied that the rest of it would all be completely legal, no tricks. But back home, the organization that I was a part of had to take custody of a lot of minors for one reason or another. I mean, CPS knew us all by name and didn't give us too much hassle because they knew us and they knew our kids, so they weren't too worried. But if they're suspicious of Harry—which you know they will be—they'll be able to make the process impossible to deal with."

"This is not going to be an easy thing to deal with."

"I know," Xander said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make things hard for you."

"It's doable, I think," John said, "But it won't be easy."

"Hey, I'll pay whatever you want for it," Xander said. "I know that this isn't like just forging a couple of papers. But I'd really appreciate having some time to pay for it, you know? I look like I'm fourteen, the only work I get isn't exactly full time."

His lips quirked into a smile. "I have a better idea. How about you come work for me instead?"

"I said no to that idea once already. What makes you think I'm going to say yes now?"

"It doesn't need to be anything that your morals will have trouble with. We can even write that in your contract: nothing illegal or against your morals, just magic."

Xander wavered. He wasn't sure that was a promise that John could keep to, but...at the least, it would be something to do, and in the event that he had problems with what he was expected to do, he could always leave. John might have people under his employ who were willing to kill him, but he had been under that kind of threat before, and he was still alive, wasn't he? There wasn't much to fear.

"All right," he said. "If it's in the contract. And . . . nothing that will place me against Harry. If he needs to be taken out, believe me, I will do what I have to do, but I can't do that if it's just politics or whatever. He's kind of like me, when I was younger, except with more magic than I ever did at his age: doing stupid things because they seem like the right thing to do. Case in point: me."

"I believe that would work," John said.

"Good," Xander said. "Uh, should I go now? I'm assuming you have work to do, especially with all of this getting dumped on you, and I'm just going to be in the way if I stick around."

John smiled gently. He had a nice smile; it was too bad he didn't use it more often (or maybe that was just when he was around Xander?). "Yes, please do. And stop by tomorrow. We'll see what I have by then."

"Alright," Xander said. "See you then."

"Goodbye, Mr. Harris."

Xander shuddered. "No, do not call me that. Being called Commander Harris was bad enough, back home. Mr. Harris is the drunk who wasn't even sober enough to get out when the whole town collapsed, with months of warning. It's Xander."

"Noted. Xander." John said.

"Good. Bye!" and Xander was out the door.

So he was officially employed by the mob, or at least a mob boss. Xander wondered which it was, or if his duties crossed over. He wouldn't be doing any overtly mob-based things, but they might be on the mob's behalf anyway. And everybody knew that John ran the mob, anyway, so he wasn't sure if there was much of a difference.

Working for the mob probably had all sorts of whacky legalities behind it, if only for the sake of keeping up the tissue-thin pretense of not doing anything illegal; he'd have to get somebody to run him through all of them. Hendricks, maybe, or somebody else; John was probably too busy to be bothered with that sort of thing, whether or not he wanted to do it.

Thinking of the legalities made Xander realize that oh, right, he was on the wrong side of the law again, which he hadn't been in Cleveland, although he had been in Sunnydale and Africa, sometimes. The police, or FBI or whoever, might bring him in for questioning, trying to get at John and the rest of his organization. The only problem with that was that Xander couldn't tell a believable lie to save his life (he had, fortunately, been saved in time, the other times he had to either convince somebody of a lie or be killed). He could twist the truth, if he knew how the other person thought, what they were trying to get out of the conversation, but he couldn't depend upon knowing how a civilian thought. They just didn't think the same way as he did, and he couldn't read minds except in certain very specific circumstances. He'd have to warn John about that, that if he didn't want Xander to tell something, he'd better make sure he didn't see it.

***

 

 

The next day, he was back, this time marveling at the fact that Harry had coffee. Another difference between the worlds. He could remember when coffee had been everywhere, cheap and plentiful. Then Brazil had gotten destroyed, and coffee hadn't been so cheap any more: it had produced a third of the world's coffee. In addition, the effects of it had been felt worldwide. The oceans had rushed to fill the spot that had formerly been Brazil, devastating all of the countries that had formerly shared a border with Brazil. The sea level had fallen everywhere else. Islands had no longer been islands. Seaside cities had no longer been located next to the sea. The effects had been felt worldwide, and the world hadn't completely recovered by the time Xander had come to this world. One of the effects had been the coffee. The industry had never really recovered. Prices were so high that it was out of the reach of the average person. Xander had occasionally been given it when he'd met with civilians—most of them were heads of state of one kind or another, and were well able to afford it—but it had no longer been something that he had on a regular basis, much less daily. Harry had coffee like it was no big deal to have it, like it was completely normal to have a cup in the morning, and if there was any left in the pot and nobody wanted more it was no big deal: just wash it out.

Xander had felt that way about coffee once. He'd gone down to the corner Starbucks without a second thought, bought coffee that he thought was overpriced, and never really thought about it. But those days seemed far in the past, nowadays. He'd almost wanted to hug the coffeemaker for its existence (he'd held himself back, though). Needless to say, this morning he was a bit buzzed with all of the coffee he'd drunk. He'd get over it soon, promise! . . . probably.

The receptionist at Executive Priority eyed him like she really didn't want to let him in, but she let him through anyway. Xander bounced into John's office. The man looked up from his desk, eyes just the slightest bit wide.

"Xander. You look...energetic, this morning." he said.

"This world has *coffee*!" Xander exclaimed a little bit louder than he'd intended.

"Your reality didn't?"

Xander shrugged, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "We did, but then there was the Juan Valdez Incident, and then it was really, really expensive, so nobody could drink it unless they were really rich. Or knew people who were really rich and liked them enough to let them drink their coffee."

John didn't comment on that, just changed the subject. "I've made some inquiries about your situation."

"Oh? Inquiries are good. Inquiries are really good. Except when they're bad, with the torture and the ribcage hats. You don't have a new hat made out of somebody's ribcage, do you?"

John looked at him flatly. "No, I do not have a new ribcage hat."

"Oh. Well, good, then. What did you find out, during your inquiries?"

"You were correct, more or less. Nobody seems to be sure whether or not the situation could be handled completely legally, so it seems to be more secure if it is handled...extra-legally."

"Oh sure, that's how I thought we'd have to do it. Can we do it without letting Harry know that it's not quite legal? Because I don't think he'd be very happy if he knew about that part, and then he'd keep digging until he found out that you're the one helping me with this little problem, and I don't think he likes you very much."

John snorted quietly. "That's a bit of an understatement."

"Well, yeah, but it's not really nice to tell people how somebody else really, really hates them, and you know, some people just aren't aware of those kinds of things unless you tell them about them, and usually it's best to let them go on in their happy little world rather than bursting their bubble and getting slime everywhere, you know?"

"Yes, I understand your meaning. Believe me, Mr. Dresden has made his feelings known on more than one occasion."

"Oh, well that's good. Well, I mean, not *good* good, but good-ish, because it would be bad if you thought that he likes you when he really, really doesn't, and it might lead to disappointment and tears."

John glared at Xander. "It would *not* lead to tears."

"Hey, I didn't say that it would lead to tears on your part, just that it would lead to tears. They might be somebody else's tears completely."

John raised an eyebrow at him but didn't comment further. "To answer your question, yes, I believe we can convince Mr. Dresden that this is being done completely legally. And for the most part it will be. Regardless of how old you are or what you're used to, I will not allow you to be treated badly under Mr. Dresden's care."

"Hey, Harry wouldn't hurt a fly! Well, okay, unless it was a monster fly that was, like, eating people while or something, because I think he'd hurt that kind of fly—I mean, shouldn't everybody? Eating people is so not of the good. But I'm not a monster fly, so I'm perfectly safe. I mean, what would he do to me, whack me with his staff?"

"I doubt that Mr. Dresden would deliberately abuse you. But that does not mean that he knows how to treat a teenager."

"Hello? Not a teenager here. And Harry's what, twenty five? It hasn't been that long since he was a teenager. I think he can still remember the basics."

"Mr. Dresden's background check came up rather sketchy, until he joined the Ragged Angel Detective Agency at nineteen. I don't know what his teenage years were like, and I doubt that you do, either."

"He had a shitty foster parent who taught him most of the magic he knows. Then he went to another guy who taught him a bit more." Xander shrugged. "What's there to know?"

"Having poor examples of parental figures does not tend to predispose individuals to being good parents."

Xander's mood fell as he was reminded of his own failures. "I know. My parents were crap, and look what I did to my son." But the energy dancing through his veins didn't let him stay depressed for long. "But again, I'm not a teenager, and I haven't been one in a long time. I've gotten betrayed and treated like crap by people I love and trusted, a whole bunch of times. One more? It's not really going to make much of an impression. I mean, if it got bad enough, I'd just leave. It's not like I don't have options."

"It shouldn't ever have to come to that."

"Yeah, well, sue me for making contingency plans. Every second of every day. It's not like I haven't had reason to use them in the past, and if I ever stopped it'd probably be the thing that killed me. Because that's the way my life goes. But seriously, it's Harry we're talking about here. I can imagine all sorts of circumstances where it might get to be a problem for me to live with him, and I'm sure you're paranoid enough to do the same, but it's not like any of them are likely."

"This is only a safeguard," John said. "And if that's not enough for you, I might remind you that I am giving my backing to this scheme, which is something that I normally wouldn't support, not if you were a real teenager, and I won't have people starting rumors that I am now in the business of setting up teenagers to maybe get abused." His eyes were nearly glowing with the force of his conviction by this point.

Xander cocked his head to the side. "Fair enough. I've heard about how you try to keep kids as safe as they can be kept, so I guess it's a pretty big thing to you. I don't understand it, because we don't protect teenagers from the consequences of their own actions very much back home, not unless those consequences hurt other people too, but I can go along with it."

"Good," John said.

"So, what's the what with the requirements? Because Harry and I haven't looked at them."

John handed over a sheet of paper. "Mr. Dresden's apartment needs to comply with these as closely as possible. There will be a certain amount of leeway given, but it is a finite amount."

Xander scanned over the list, wincing at a few of the items, especially the ones aimed at fire hazards. They weren't unreasonable, but they'd mean a lot of changes in Harry's apartment. Well, either Harry was willing to change them, or he wasn't; Xander wouldn't have a problem either way. He probably wouldn't have too much of a problem once Xander upgraded the Tesla Compensators on all of his electric devices; the candles and fireplace hadn't looked like they were there for aesthetic purposes, and there weren't many people in the world who voluntarily took showers with no hot water. "This is totally doable. Or possibly not doable, I can't read Harry's mind, but it's probably doable. I don't see anything that isn't doable, I mean the biggest problem's probably going to be squeezing another bed into the place, since it's not exactly huge, but that's probably one of the ones that are absolutely completely required."

"Probably," John said. "Your paperwork will be another day. There are apparently a few more details to finalize to make you completely official. Your story is that your parents homeschooled you, and died a few months ago in a fire that destroyed your house, leaving you homeless."

"Homeschool?"

"It requires less work to document than schools, and will provide an explanation for any areas that you are either ahead or behind your classmates in."

"Like history, I guess. Yeah, that makes sense. I can work with that. Oh, and that reminds me!"

"Yes?"

"So yeah, I'm kind of bad at lying. Like really, really bad. I mean, I can lie about somethings and be believable—you know, when somebody asks me why I'm walking down the street with a broadsword in my hand, and I say I'm just messing around with my friends, we're into historical reenactment, that sort of thing. But, like, in that kind of situation I know what's safe and what's not safe to say, because I've been doing that my whole life, but like, if the FBI or somebody comes in and wants to know something, I'm not going to know what lies are going to be believable or what they're looking for or anything, so I might be trying, but if I know anything I shouldn't tell them you should tell me that? I guess? Because I don't understand the way civilians think, like at all, much less civilians in this reality, so I don't know what's a safe lie or how to lie so that they believe me, if they're even willing to be convinced that I'm telling the truth."

"I'll take that into consideration. Perhaps I could ask one of my people to teach you what you need to know."

"Sure, that might work. Maybe. I mean, classes are kind of hit or miss, whether they'll teach me anything or not—I mean, I had to retake the beginning magical classes like five times each before it started to make any sense to me, so it really might take a while. But pound it into my head enough times, and I'll eventually get it."

"I have no intention of ending your education until you know it well," John said. "Don't worry on that account."

"Well that's good. I was getting all worked up about it because, hey, organized crime is all about keeping secrets and lying, and since those aren't things I'm good at, I was kind of worried that this whole deal would fall through, or I'd end up accidentally betraying you or something."

"You won't." John sounded very sure of that fact. Xander, of course, wasn't as certain as he was, but he decided not to argue with John when he had that expression on his face. "To continue, I do have an employment contract worked up already; please let me know if you'd like to negotiate any of the clauses." He slid a few sheets of typed paper over to Xander.

Xander picked them up and started reading. They were full of legalese, which Xander was far from fluent in, but SWCI had unfortunately had to enter into a few legal contracts over the years, and the many rumors about Wolfram and Hart had made him way of not reading through any contracts he signed very, very carefully, so Xander pressed through it the best he could.

There weren't any nasty surprises buried in the clauses and subclauses, or even the fine print. In fact, it was as straightforward a contract as Xander had ever seen. It didn't come as much of a surprise to Xander. John might be a sneaky man, but he seemed to reserve his sneakiness for getting people do what he wanted them to do, if they didn't want to do it. He didn't have any reason to be sneaky in Xander's case. Sure, Xander might have turned him down the first time John had offered him a job, but he was accepting *this* job offer, and John didn't really want more out of him than doing the job he was given, providing magical security for John and his properties. He didn't want Xander's firstborn (good luck with that, anyway; Xander’s firstborn had gotten stubborn genes from both sides of the family, and was in a different reality anyway), or his soul or even his eternal service. This was just a job like any other, except for how it was providing magical security to a mob boss. Xander didn't have any problem signing.

"You didn't fill out your salary," John pointed out.

Xander shrugged. "Meh, just pay me whatever. I mean, it's not like I use much money just walking around and talking to people, and food doesn't cost that much. I should probably give some to Harry, since he's not the richest person in the world and now he's going to be trying to pay for both of us and make all these changes, but it probably can't be much because if the laws here are the same as the laws back home, which I have no idea about, but if they are the same then fourteen year olds aren't old enough to have jobs, because they have to be sixteen to have a job, so if I bring home too much money to give to Harry or buy groceries or whatever with, then he'll be suspicious because I can't legally have a job, so just pay me whatever, I don't really care about it."

"Should I tell you what I'm paying you?"

"Eh, go ahead and surprise me. It's not like I'm going to count it or anything, and if I run out of money I'll just take a job somewhere. That's what I've been doing, and it's not like I've been hurting any."

"I think that you have a different definition of hardship than others do," John said.

"Well, that's not my fault, is it? I mean, this is nothing. Sure, it's a bit chilly at night, and before Harry scooped me up I didn't have a threshold or wards to sleep behind, but I have enough food to eat, and enough clothes that I'm not suffering because I don't have enough of them to keep me warm or covered from the sun—of course, now it's all about the cold, but the other one's important too, let me tell you, you do not want to go wandering around the Sahara without covering up, because there's no way you are ever going to get every single little spot with the sunscreen, and since you've got to use so much of it it starts to cost a lot of money eventually if you're depending on sunscreen to keep you un-sunburnt. But it's not like this is a hardship. I've got enough money to buy the food that's pretty much literally everywhere, it's not like I have no choice other than stealing my food, or like there isn't enough food in the area to feed everybody or anything. I saw both of those, in Africa and almost in Cleveland, during the war—we were on tight rations during the war, because we were never sure if the shipments of food were going to come in, and sometimes they didn't come for a few weeks, and we would have starved if we hadn't planned for the possibility because it didn't matter how many gardens we had in the city, there were never enough to feed everybody, and there wouldn't have been even if everybody had had green thumbs and ages of experience under their belts, which they didn't. There's hardship here in this city, I know, but my situation here has never been that bad, and I doubt that it ever will be because I know enough places that I can find a bit of work, where they won't care about my age. So yeah, maybe I define hardship differently than other people do, but I think I'm right about it."

John looked kind of like Giles used to look when the Scoobies had gotten in full swing: halfway between amusement and exasperation and fondness. Some of the civilians got that look sometimes too. It was usually a sign that they were about to agree to whatever Xander wanted, just so that he'd go away and stop arguing with them. But Xander wasn't arguing with John, so it was more of a Giles look than anybody else's. "You do understand your duties, I hope."

"Yeah, sure," Xander said. "Magical security, whatever's required that won't be against my morals or put me against Harry—I mean, not that I couldn't take him, but it's not fun to fight your roommate."

"Yes. It'll be mostly warding, with some amount of acting as my bodyguard."

"Warding I'm good on. I've got a PhD in it, even if you don't have any PhDs in warding in this world, so it's not like it would be recognized. Being your bodyguard . . . make sure it's not to anything Harry might go to. I mean, I'm assuming that you'll mostly want a bodyguard against supernatural beings at events that a lot of the supernatural community's invited to, and Harry might not be the joiniest of people, but he's a member of that White Council, so I'm betting that he might be required to go to some of them. Plus, if he's investigating supernatural crimes or whatever, he might go voluntarily, as unlikely as that seems."

"I will research any events as thoroughly as I can before I ask you to serve as my bodyguard at them, and find an alternate arrangement for events that Mr. Dresden is likely to attend. I ask that you attempt to keep abreast of which events Mr. Dresden plans to attend, as a further precaution. However, I must tell you that there are likely to be events which I do not realize that Mr. Dresden is attending, prior to seeing him at them."

"Yeah, sure, I mean, it's not like I expect you to be omniscient or anything, because that's kind of a creepy power—I mean, seriously, seriously creepy, I've seen it in action, and it was really creepy. And shit happens. I'm pretty much the poster boy for shit happening, so it's not like I'm going to get on your case if shit happens and you didn't know that it was going to happen, as long as you didn't make it happen, or know that it was going to happen and not stop it from happening."

"As long as we're in agreement," John said.

"Sure," Xander said. "It's good."

"Then I'll take this," John said, taking one copy of the employment contract, "and you take the other—and I do suggest you not let Mr. Dresden find it—and I will see you tomorrow, to give you your papers."

"Okay," Xander said, slipping his copy of the contract into his Bag of Holding. "When do you want me to come by to start work?"

"I believe you'll be too busy this week to do so. Come in when things are more settled for you and Mr. Dresden."

Xander thought that John was overestimating how much he would have to do, or at least how much time it would take him, but he shrugged and went along with it. Maybe John was right after all.

"And Xander?" John said as Xander headed out the door.

"Yeah?"

"You might want to limit how much coffee you drink, in the future. There will be more available in the future, you don't have to drink it all at once."

Xander didn't dignify that with a response.

***

 

After a quick stop to see if Harry was in his office for Xander to give him the list of what needed to be in compliance in the apartment (he was out on a case, so Xander took the list home with him; Harry wouldn't be able to do anything about it while he was at work, anyway), Xander picked a few things up from the apartment and went to find somebody to talk to. Upgrading Tesla Compensators was not exactly the most interesting task, so when it had to be done—and especially done in such a quantity as he had to do it this time—he preferred to do it with company.

He hadn't been able to talk with the warehouse guys the previous night, when they'd been meeting with their friends, and he'd actually missed them a couple of nights in a row before that, so he wanted to talk to them more than anybody else.

He hadn't been anywhere other than John's office that morning, so he hadn't gotten caught up with the gossip from last night. Once he went out and started talking to people to try to find out where the warehouse guys spent their days, he learned that things had gotten complicated last night. Some of the warehouse guys were dead, and Snake was in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound. Well, he supposed that it boiled down to the warehouse guys being bad at making friends: they hadn't known that although friendships started with not knowing if the other guys were on your side or not, and having a showdown with whatever weapons you had on you, it was supposed to end before there were any major injories, much less deaths!

He should go and visit Snake in the hospital, give him a bit of advice about making and keeping friends. He could obviously use the advice, if this was what he did when Xander didn't give him any advice. It would be like Remedial Friendship 101. Xander didn't have all of the answers, but he knew enough to teach Remedial Friendship 101, even if not any of the more advanced courses (Goddess knew he'd had his own friendship troubles in the past). But visiting Snake would be a little bit of a problem.

Not even Harry had heavy duty Tesla Compensators, hadn't even seemed like he knew what Tesla Compensators were. Now, that might just have been Harry, but then again it might not be, and if anybody in this town had reason to know about them it was Harry. So what were the odds of the hospital having heavy duty Tesla Compensators in its equipment? This world was so backwards in the areas where it counted, that Xander wasn't willing to gamble on it.

He hated, hated, *hated* using the bracelets. Everybody did. Even the Blanks, who didn't respond to anything else, could feel themselves being cut off from the world and the magic around them, like they were encased in an impermeable bubble. It was a deeply disturbing feeling, and especially to anybody who was normally aware of the magic around them. Xander had been aware of his surroundings in that way at least since high school when he'd first started patrolling, and maybe even for his entire life. His sense of the magic surrounding him was about as much a part of him as his hearing or his sense of smell. And he'd have to put the bracelets on to visit Snake in the hospital.

It wasn't as much of a sacrifice as it sounded like. He'd have to wear them anyway, if he wanted to work on the Tesla Compensators, so that he wouldn't fry the devices while they didn't have anything protecting them. He just didn't want to wear them any longer than absolutely necessary to accomplish his task, and just getting through the hospital was likely to take him a while.

Well, he'd be accomplishing more than one thing at the same time, at least, which was about the opposite of wasting his time spent in the bracelets. Kill two vamps with one stake, and all that. So at the entrance to the hotel, he put the bracelets on with a grimace and headed in to find Snake.

The bracelets, neon bright, were not exactly the most inconspicuous things in the world—they were designed that way, so that it would be very obvious when somebody entered sensitive areas when they didn't have the bracelets on—but Xander's body was now young enough that adults would assume that nearly anything he wore was just some strange new fashion and not question it. This world wasn't as uninquisitive as his own, but their instincts involving young people, at least, seemed to be the same. It was probably a good thing; Xander thought that teens were probably the same in any world.

It was easy enough to find Snake, although his efforts were hampered by not knowing what Snake's paperwork called him. But his tattoo was distinctive enough that the nurses knew who he was, once Xander described it, so Xander didn't have to wander around until he found Snake. That was a good thing, as security seemed much tighter here than back home. A hospital, actually trying to keep their patients from getting killed while they were in there, what a novelty. It didn't sound like the best policy to Xander—none of the hospital employees looked like they could stop anybody that was actually a threat—but then again, this was the world where very little was dangerous. Maybe it was a safe enough policy, here.

Snake's room was guarded by a police officer, who was reluctant to let Xander in but eventually relented and let him in after searching him thoroughly—or as thoroughly as he could, while completely missing Xander's Bag of Holding (though, to be fair, the Bag of Holding was kind of small before it was opened).

Xander entered the room and found Snake lying on one of the two beds in the room, the other empty. "Xander!" Snake said. "The hell are you doin' here?"

"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm visiting you. Figured you could use a bit of distraction from the hospital food."

"Aw, man, you didn't have to do that."

"Friend in hospital. Of course I had to visit."

"Well, c'mon, sit down."

Xander took a seat in the chair next to Snake's bed. "How's the injury?"

"It's just a graze, don't worry about it," Snake said.

"Really?" Xander snuck a look at Snake's chart. "Because that's not what this says. But you should be fine, eventually."

"You can read that thing?"

"Yeah, I had to take a few classes and ended up learning how to read charts. They put them in a kind of code, because if you don't know a lot, some of the things they write down can sound really bad when they're really not, and if you think that you're going to die, there's a better chance that you'll die than if you're sure that you're going to live, no matter what the actual odds are. So think positive, and things will go better. You don't have much to worry about, anyway."

"It's the *much* that worries me. Cause that means that there's still stuff to worry about, right?"

"Well, yeah, of course. But it's kind of like walking down the street. In your case, there's barricades up so there's probably not going to be any cars to worry about, but if you want to you can still worry that someone's going to drive right through a barricade and run you over, or that lightning will hit you, or that a building will collapse on you. There are always things to worry about, if you want to, and some of them can kill you, but in your particular case none of them are too likely."

"Well, that's cool. But now I'm worried about lightning."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Don't worry about things that aren't likely, unless unlikely things happen to you regularly. You've got better things to do with your time."

"Like what? I'm stuck in here, alone, and the TV's busted. What am I supposed to be doing?"

"From what I hear, your friends went back to Russia. Why don't you write to them?"

"Why do you keep saying they're my friends? Those aren't my friends. I'm in here because they *shot* me. Little Tito's dead because of those bastards, and you think I should write them a fucking letter?"

"Look, I know that you guys aren't that good at making friends, but you've got to make an effort for your friendship to succeed. And since they've gone back to Russia, you can't do it in person, so you need to write to them, because long-distance phone calls are killer on the phone bill. I mean, yeah, you got off on the wrong foot, but just because you went a little bit too far with the standoff at the beginning of your friendship, doesn't mean you should just give up on it succeeding."

"What the fuck, man?" Snake said. "I don't want to be friends with those fucking bastards. That wasn't some friendly shootout, it was a fight to the death. Seriously, you've been reading too many comic books. In real life you don't fight somebody and then realize you're on the same side, you're just on different sides."

"That's how a lot of my friendships go," Xander argued. "Okay, the pointing weapons at each other part doesn't always happen at the beginning, but I think that every friend that I've ever been friends with for more than a couple of years, we've seriously pointed weapons at each other at some point or another."

Snake stared at him, trying to determine if he was serious. Eventually he decided that he was. "That's fucked up, man. That's not real friendship."

"Hey! You don't know my friends, you don't get to judge. Because I've had about every kind of friendship possible, and I know which ones were real friendships. And all of them had at least one standoff or major fight at one point or another iause you look scary, and you don't exactly make an effort to make friends. If you want to make friends? I'm sorry, but unless you make a lot of changes your options are pretty limited, and you shouldn't throw any of them away just because you got off on the wrong foot. I mean, think about how much you have in common with those guys! Sure, you're from different countries, but you're in the same line of work. You're obviously both dedicated to your job. And that one guy had a snake tattoo, too. You both like snakes! Think about how much you have to talk about."

"Gah! Fine, if it'll make you shut up about it, I'll write to that guy. But I don't want to hear another word about it."

Xander grinned. "Hey, that's great! Neither of us can guarantee that he'll write back, of course, but you're taking the first step, so it'll be up to him to take the next one."

"Hey, I said no more," Snake said.

"Okay," Xander said. "Hey, you want to give me a hand?"

"Give you a hand with what?" Snake asked suspiciously.

"I've got some work to do, upgrading a few electronics."

"I don't know how to do any of that."

Xander shrugged. "That's cool. I know how, and I can teach you."

Snake sighed. "I guess. Not like there's anything better to do around here."

"That's the spirit!" Xander said, ignoring the hospital blues, and pulled out his projects.

"Is that supposed to be a phone?" Snake asked, poking at the heavy rotary dial phone Xander had pulled out.

"Yep," Xander said.

"Man, you don't need to upgrade that thing, you need to throw it away and buy a new phone."

Xander shrugged. "My new roommate has a whole closet full of these things, Might as well use them, right?"

"That thing belongs in a museum, not being used."

"Hey, as long as it works, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. So what are we gonna do to it?"

"You probably don't need to know the technical stuff, and it can be kind of boring, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Just, you know, if you don't want to remember it, that's fine."

"Okay..."

"So, every living thing radiates an energy which, for convenience, we call magic. There's all sorts of quibbling among the big nerds about what it actually is, or what we 'should' call it, but the rest of us just call it magic because it's the traditional name and we have better things to do than explain whatever new term we come up with."

"Wait, you're saying magic's real?"

"Yes. And the not-so-impressive proof's all around you, because life can't exist without magic. I could show you more impressive proof, but if there's enough magic, it can fry higher levels of technology if they're not shielded right, and since I don't know what they do with the machines in this hospital, that's not something I want to test right now, because it might end up killing somebody."

"Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea."

"So what we're going to be doing is, first, looking to see what kind of shielding these devices have, and then if it's not up to my standards—and I doubt it is—we'll improve the shielding."

"How do you know how to do this?"

"Well, back in my home dimension, I lived in Cleveland, which was where the Hellmouth was, and because the barriers between worlds were so thin there, there was a lot more magic floating around than there was in most other places in the world, so we had to upgrade the shielding in everything as soon as we got it, otherwise it'd die after about a week."

"Your home dimension? Hellmouth? Are you shitting me?"

"I shit you not," Xander said seriously. "I'm not from around here, but I'm probably never going to be able to go back, so I'm making the most of my life here. The Hellmouth you don't have to worry about. Well, at least not in Chicago; I haven't been able to check out the whole world to see if there are *any*."

"But, *Hell*mouth! As in, you know, the Devil and fire and pitchforks?"

"Uh, sort of. The Hellmouth is a thinness in the walls between dimensions. Mostly when it opens it leads to hell dimensions, although there was that one very odd time that it led to a heaven dimension, but they're not all the same. Some of them do have the fire and whatnot, but others are icy, and some are very similar to Earth. It all depends."

"But...is Hell a real place?"

Xander shrugged. "Look, there's a lot of hell dimensions out there. Is there one that fits your idea of Hell? I don't know. Is there a place your soul goes after you're dead, if you're a bad enough person? There's at least one, although I'm not sure of the criteria for going there rather than getting one of the other afterlives. There's at least one Heaven, I know; one of my friends went there the second time she died, at least. Are those the only places you can go after you die? Everything I've heard says no, but it's not something that we're completely sure about."

"So it is real?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, seriously, we live in a multiverse that is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. If it *can* exist, chances are very, very good that it exists somewhere in the multiverse. But that doesn't necessarily mean a thing about what's going to be your afterlife, or anybody else's."

"So...you believe in Heaven and Hell, but at the same time you don't think you're going to either one of them?"

"Hey, I'm reserving judgement. For all I know, those are the only two choices. But I don't think that's very likely. I mean, it doesn't seem right for people who don't believe that they're going to Heaven or Hell to go to either one of them. And I'd think that the other gods would get kind of pissed off if the Judeo-Christian god stole all of their worshippers once they died, so I doubt that's what happens. My friend believed in Heaven, she went to Heaven. I know it exists, but I'm not so sure I want to go there when I die, so who knows where I'll end up?"

"How can you not want to go to Heaven, even though you know it's real?"

"Just doesn't sound like my kind of place," Xander said with a shrug. "Hey, if it sounds like your kind of place, then go for it, try to be a good enough person to get in. I'm not standing in the way of anybody's afterlife, no matter what it is. But it doesn't sound like my kind of thing. What happens, happens, I guess, but in the meantime I'm living this life for the sake of this life, not for the sake of some afterlife that may or may not ever happen."

"But you know that they exist! How can you think that you won't go to one of them?"

"Look, I've seen a lot. I mean, I know I look young, but there aren't many people who have as much experience as I do. Sure, Heaven and Hell and angels and demons are real, but so are pagan gods and magic and . . . goddess, I've seen almost everything. I know that it all exists, because I've seen it, or people I trust have seen it. But there's a difference between knowing that something exists and believing in it. I don't take the existence of Heaven and Hell on faith, I've heard people who have been to them tell me about them. And it's the same with everything else. I don't have faith, I have proof. I don't have to *believe* a thing. And what that means for my afterlife? I've got no idea."

"But-"

"Hey, personal beliefs are personal beliefs. It is so not acceptable to try to force anybody to change theirs. I might not feel very strongly about mine, but that doesn't give you the right to try to change them. Because that just opens the door to all sorts of badness, and religious wars and whatnot—and I don't think we need any of that."

"No, but I just can't believe that it's real. Like, for real real, not just go to church real. And you've seen it."

"I've given up on thinking that there's anything that isn't real. I've seen too much to."

"So what makes you so special, to see all of that?"

"Hey, there's nothing special about me!" Xander protested. "I am as normal a person as you can find. Well, at least for my world, since yours seems to be a bit different in unexpected ways. But I have completely average levels of magic, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I'm not the dullest either. I'm not any more suited to fighting than a lot of other people. The only things that are different about me are that once upon a time I was in the right place at the right time to get involved, and that I've been lucky enough to survive long enough to learn as much as I have."

"Survive long enough? Xander, you're a kid. When the hell did you get involved, and how quickly did everybody else die?"

"Appearances can be deceiving. I'm 321 years old, I've just been deaged to 14, which is about a year younger than I was when I got involved the first time around."

"321 years old? Humans can't live that long."

"The more magic you're exposed to, the longer you live, and not only have I been around a lot of magic users my whole life, but I also spent nearly the whole thing living on one Hellmouth or another, which as I said before, means that there was magic everywhere. So I had the usual magic user's life span even before I started doing any magic myself."

"So now that you do magic, you're all magic-y? And that's why we're doing this stuff?"

Xander beamed at him. "Yep! Plus my new roommate's a wizard himself, so it's double the magic in the apartment."

"And he didn't do the upgrades himself?"

"I don't know if your world has even come up with them," Xander said. "You'd think that if anybody knew, it would be a wizard, and Harry doesn't. Maybe they only came up with them in my world because there's so much magic, and whoever came up with them there didn't do it in this world because they didn't see any reason to. It's kind of a moot point anyway. It's gotta be done, for whatever reason, so we're doing it."

"So what do we have to do first?"

"First, we have to open them up," Xander said, and handed over a phone and a screwdriver. For himself he took another phone and screwdriver.

They got the phones open quickly, and then Xander just stopped, staring into the phone.

"Xander? What's up?"

"Holy shit, this phone doesn't have a Tesla Compensator," Xander said. "At all."

"Uh...I have no idea what that means."

"The Tesla Compensator's the part that keeps the magic from making things go wrong with it," Xander said. "I can't believe these phones don't have them at all."

"Why not? Didn't you just say that this world doesn't have as much magic as yours?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't imagine that would change something like the very existence of Tesla Compensators. I mean, they were invented way back when electricity was just starting to spread. More recent stuff like the heavy duty Compensators, I understand them not existing, because they're so recent that they would be more influenced by the prevalence of magic in my world as compared to here—modern electronics wouldn't have been developed, at least in my world, without the heavy duty compensator because they're so vulnerable to magic that a normal Compensator just doesn't do enough, even if they're not in an area with a lot of magic. But these phones are old enough that they don't need the heavy duty Compensator unless they are in high-magic areas, so I was expecting to find just a normal Compensator. What the hell? How can there not be one at all? Doesn't even the ambient magic cause problems without one?"

"Uh, I don't know about any of this, and I wouldn't know what I was looking at inside of any of my stuff even if I looked, but most people don't have very many problems."

"So maybe everything else has Tesla Compensators?" Xander guessed. "No, that doesn't seem right...I just kind of grabbed these phones at random from Harry's closet, and they're not even made by the same company or anything. So you'd think that if it was normal, at least one of them would have a Tesla Compensator."

"Maybe they don't usually have them?"

"But that's ridiculous! How can there be this much technology in the world without any sort of protection at all?"

"Dude, most people here don't believe in magic. Why would they protect against it?"

"Just, just—Arrgh!" Xander said, pulling his hair. "This is ridiculous, but we're probably not going to figure it out."

"So . . . on with the project?" Snake suggested. "Unless we can't."

Xander shrugged, calming down. "It'll be a bit more work, but we can do it. I used to wire up semi-experimental equipment for our research and development department, so I can do it from scratch. It'll just be a little bit trickier, without a space that's meant for the Tesla Compensator."

"So how do we do it?" Snake asked.

Xander pulled out an assortment of tools and parts. "So, the first principle that the Tesla Compensator relies on is..."

***

 

Xander took his newly-upgraded devices home with him when he got kicked out of Snake's hospital room by the nurses. He hadn't really expected it, but Snake was kind of good at making heavy duty Tesla Compensators and installing them. It had been obvious that he had never done anything similar before, but he was as attentive as many of the students Xander had taught over the years, and picked the skills up quickly. Xander wasn't as certain that he'd entirely understood the explanation Xander had given of the principles behind it, but that was more of an advanced topic, and not one he really needed to know until or unless he got seriously interested in either magical theory or the working of electronics around magic, neither of which seemed likely in the near future. Based on his experience today, Xander had recommended that Snake study electronics if he thought it was interesting, because he could be good at it if he made the effort to.

Snake had argued at that. He already knew what he was doing with his life, he said, and electronics wasn't it. Besides, he wasn't some geek. But there had been a pleased gleam in his eyes, so Xander had just shrugged and told him that it was his choice; if he didn't enjoy it, then he didn't have to have anything to do with it. Maybe it would come to nothing. Snake was in charge of his own life, and if he didn't want to do it then he wouldn't. But if he did find the work interesting, Xander thought that his encouragement might help Snake hold on to it instead of giving up on the idea before he even gave it a chance.

Maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to do, but Xander didn't feel like waiting outside for Harry to get home, so he picked the lock and the wards and let himself in. The first thing he did was swap out one of the phones he and Snake had altered for the phone that was currently plugged in. He'd have to upgrade that one, too, but he hadn't wanted to take all of the phones from the apartment at one time, even if nobody was at home to answer them. And he still had more work to do elsewhere in the apartment. The water heater didn't work, likely because of the same issue with there being no Tesla Compensator, and Xander had already gone without hot water for a few months during the War. He wasn't willing to do it again for anything short of absolute necessity, and a missing Tesla Compensator was not absolute necessity in his opinion. That would be fixed as soon as he could get at it. Maybe he'd do it the next time Harry was out, so that he could surprise him when he came back. There were a few other issues that, likewise, could not be taken out of the apartment: heat and air conditioning, if there was air conditioning here (this being a basement, it might not even be necessary in the summer, but if there was an air conditioning unit he might as well fix it since he could; and there were always occasional unusually hot summers to deal with, which would be miserable without any air conditioning, even if this was Chicago and not somewhere warmer), maybe the stove and oven if Harry didn't keep repairing those. There wasn't any refrigerator or freezer, just an icebox, so he wouldn't have to deal with those. And he probably should do something about the lights, for the sake of it being less of a fire hazard if nothing else.

But for now, he was just taking his usual afternoon nap. There'd be more time for upgrades later; the time for sleep was now. There was no apocalypse or even major problems brewing, nor even minor ones for that matter. There was no reason for Xander to forgo his usual sleep. Even when apocalypses were near, he usually made sure he got his usual amount of sleep, because there was nothing worse than needing to be able to think and being unable to because you were too tired. And while most fights didn't require much thought, apocalypses were a different matter. It was a rare apocalypse that didn't require some form of thought, whether it be in deciphering a prophecy or the language the apocalypse causer was speaking, or in figuring out how to talk somebody out of doing something as stupid as ending the world. Xander had long since learned to tune out the world and go to sleep, no matter how tense and close to the end things were, because otherwise he'd have months out of every year where he didn't get any sleep at all.

What he couldn't shut out or ignore, however, was anything that his subconscious thought might be an attack. Maybe it was PTSD, minus the "post" part of it, but Xander didn't care much. It had saved his life more times than he cared to remember. Anybody who he didn't entirely trust, and sometimes people he did (because he'd had problems before), would set off his instincts.

The thing was, Xander didn't wake up quickly. Not when he woke up on his own, and not even when he was woken up by the feeling that he might be in danger. It took a while for his brain to come entirely online, and in the meantime things could be difficult for anybody who set off his senses and wasn't trying to kill him.

Hyena had never left Xander, not entirely. One of the consequences of his mental walls being eroded to nothing by living on the Hellmouth since he was born until it was far too late for him to develop natural shields like most people had, was that he was naturally very, very possessable. Until he'd started the grueling process of raising artificial mental shields in his mind, he had had no shields whatsoever, so everything that came along and tried to possess him succeeded easily, and stayed there in some corner of his mind. So Hyena was there, and Soldier, and those small bits of personality that Fishman and the Chumash had left in him. And when he wasn't in charge of his actions (like, say, when he was sleeping), they were.

Fortunately, his residents were good tenants. They didn't usually do anything with his body when he wasn't in charge. That wasn't due to any effort on his part, mostly. They just didn't really want to be in charge. The world outside of his head wasn't that interesting to them, and apparently there was enough of interest inside of it to keep them entertained. As well, they kind of liked him, in their own ways, and didn't want to see him hurt by their actions—they knew how badly things might turn out if he started acting stranger than usual, and they couldn't emulate him with any degree of accuracy. So mostly they stayed shut up in his mind, doing who knew what (Xander didn't want to think about it; the occasional dream with them in it was bad enough). But if they felt he might be in danger, they acted.

Xander hadn't known Harry for long enough for his mind's residents to be comfortable with him. Xander might trust him, but Xander was a lot more trusting than the rest of them were. Most of the rest of them would be happier with a shoot first and ask questions never policy than Xander's standard trust until it was proven that he couldn't policy. They constantly kept an eye (and an ear, and a nose) out for any signs that Xander was about to be betrayed. It had saved his life more than once, but it did mean that any time they were in charge they acted as paranoid as anybody could want, and that backfired many times when Xander *wasn't* being betrayed by whoever was approaching him while he was asleep.

This time, of course, the victim of Xander's imaginary friends was Harry. He was the only person it could be; his wards had the distinct flavor of only ever being worked on by one person, Harry himself. There was always a slight chance he'd given somebody else the ward pattern so that they'd be able to get in, but it wasn't a very likely possibility. He hadn't even given it to Xander, and Xander was going to be living here.

By the time Xander was awake enough to be aware of what was going on, Hyena had Harry pinned to the floor, unable to move. Harry wasn't quite yelling, but he was making a lot of noise trying to talk Xander into getting off of him. He wasn't fighting back much; with as large as he was, he'd probably be able to get Hyena off of him, if not pin her, even without any skill in fighting, since Xander was in this teenage body and Hyena didn't have much technique in fighting. He'd obviously decided to see if Hyena (well, presumably he thought that she was Xander) would stop on her own.

"Uh," Xander said. "Sorry." He let Harry go, stood up so he wasn't on top of him, and reached down to give him a hand up.

After a moment of hesitation, Harry took it and Xander pulled him up to his feet. "What was that?"

"When I'm sleeping, I kind of reflexively defend myself from anything my subconscious thinks might be a danger," Xander explained shortly, leaving Hyena and all the rest out of it because some people were intolerant of that kind of thing. "And I haven't known you for long enough for my subconscious to be used to you yet. Not that that stops it all the time, even."

"Those are some pretty big reflexes."

"I've faced some pretty big threats," Xander said. "It's saved my life more than once. I don't think it's going away any time soon."

"Well, as long as you don't try to kill me while you're sleeping."

"Not unless you try to kill me first," Xander promised. "I'm good enough about that. Just, you know, it might happen again. Sometimes it even happens with people I trust—some wire gets crossed, and my subconscious doesn't think you're trustworthy even when I know you are."

"Is there anything I can do to keep from getting attacked?"

"Not much. Don't sneak around or try to be quiet, don't mess around with anything that might be mistaken for a weapon, that kind of thing might help, but nothing's for sure."

"Sure, I can do that."

Xander flashed him a smile. "I know it's a bit messed up. But it's kept me safe in the past, so I'm not going to try to get rid of it any time soon."

"Sure, I understand that. But if you ever want to..."

"I could probably figure it out on my own. But like I said, I don't want to, and I don't see that changing any time soon."

"You don't have to if you don't want to, unless it becomes a danger to you or anybody else."

"I've got no problem with that."

"Good," Harry said. "Now that that's cleared up...how'd you get through my wards?"

"Uh, sorry," Xander said. "I know it's kind of rude, but I just didn't feel like waiting you, so I picked your wards."

"Picked my wards? What do you mean by that?"

"You know, traced the path to open them up?"

"You could do that?"

"Wards are my specialty," Xander said. "If I'd been allowed to study only one type of magic, it would have been wards. I have a lot of experience with wards, both theoretical and practical. Your wards are decent enough, but it'd take a lot more to keep me out than them. Uh, I hope you don't mind that I broke in? I mean, I know you didn't give me a key or anything, but since I'm moving in here I figured it would be all right."

"Sure, of course it's all right. I was going to give you a key, but I forgot...sorry."

Xander shrugged. "No big deal. I didn't have a problem getting in or anything."

"But how?"

"I've studied wards a lot more than you have, is all," Xander said. "I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem getting through your wards, would you?"

"But I'm the one who built my wards. I know how they work, how they're constructed. You don't."

"Okay, when I say I have more experience with wards than you do? I'm talking, like, PhD level of studying wards. And you only do wards as a hobby, basically. You have something that works, so you don't study them anymore. Me? I built wards, I took wards apart. I compared wards to each other. And I improved on what came before. I love wards. I could play with them all day, and then some more. I could write whole volumes on ward construction. It's kind of like building your own lock, and I'm the guy who picked it—a guy who's a locksmith, and builds locks for things that need to be kept really safe, and completed an extremely thorough study of every type of lock that had ever been heard of in my reality, and moonlights as a thief. It doesn't really matter how good your lock is compared to other hobbyists' locks, I have so much more experience that there isn't even a little bit of doubt that I'll be able to pick your lock. The only thing you can do is slow me down a little."

"Okay...so how do my wards compare to other wards?"

"First off, I have no idea how people build wards in this reality. So you've got to realize that this is a bit of a comparing apples to oranges situation. They're both fruit, or, well, wards, but they come from completely different trees and have to deal with completely different situations. Like, from what I've heard and what I've noticed, there's a lot less magic around here, and a lot fewer magic users. Maybe that's normal, maybe that's Chicago, but either way it shows that there are some pretty major differences between the realities."

"Okay, got it. Apples and oranges. But wards are wards, right?"

"Well, sure. But my world had so much more magic, and was in the middle of a magical revolution—kind of like the industrial revolution—so no matter what, I'm pretty sure we'd have more advanced wards than in this reality. If nothing else, we had more magic users, so there was a lot more opportunity for somebody to come up with improvements."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if you only have five people, chances are that none of them is the next Tesla, right? But the more people you add to that number, even if they're completely randomly selected, the more likely it is that one of them is a genius like that. And once you have someone in there coming up with new advancements, they spread it to everybody else. And the progress is even faster the more people you have who can make those advancements."

"So you're saying that your world has better wards because you have more wizards?"

"Um...we don't really divide things up the way you do here. Some of our best magical theorists were actually Blanks, or near enough that they might as well be. But yeah, you've got the gist of it. The more people, the more advancements there are, and we were big into encouraging everybody to share whatever they learned, so it wasn't like it used to be where you didn't learn anything new unless you were somebody's apprentice or they happened to write a book that you happened to get your hands on. So there was all kinds of progress being made in all sorts of areas, and wards were one of the big areas since we also had a lot more dangers than you do here—again, I don't know about outside of Chicago, but it seems really extremely quiet here compared to at home. I mean, we actually had a lot of civilian magic developed, but most of the people who were really at the forefront of the advancement of magic were also heavily involved in keeping the forces of darkness at bay, so most of their efforts went into figuring out how to keep the world and the people in it safe. And that means offensive and defensive magic, and a grab bag of whatever could be useful to the people who go out every night and defend the world. Where do the magic researchers in this world place their emphasis?"

"Uh...I'm not really old enough to be on the cutting edge of magical research, you know? Apprenticeships can't cover everything, so I have to figure the rest out on my own."

 _It's rude to dis other worlds' SOPs. It's rude to dis other people's teachers. It's rude to dis other worlds,_ Xander reminded himself mentally. He suspected that it was going to be his mantra from now on, because the more he learned about this world the happier he was that he wasn't from it. Sure, he was stuck here now, but at least he hadn't had to grow up here. He'd grown up in a nice, _sane_ world, which had given him the perspective to see the flaws in this one. The people from this world didn't have this luxury. They'd lived in this world their whole lives, and probably had managed to convince themselves that their system was actually a good one.

Okay, so he could understand how Harry wasn't on the cutting edge of whatever magical developments this backwater reality managed to pull off. He was only in his twenties, after all, and even at SWCI which was full of young people outperforming the wildest expectations of people who weren't part of SWCI, there weren't many who had completed their PhD in whatever field of magic they had majored in. There were always a few who were so brilliant that they went faster than everybody else, or started earlier, or simply made wild leaps of logic that the experts couldn't make, before they'd completed their education; but on the whole, even at SWCI he likely wouldn't have been on the cutting edge of magical research and development. And of course Xander was aware that an apprenticeship wouldn't cover everything; it was the same with PhDs in his world. There was always more to learn, no matter how long you studied it. But it sounded like Harry wasn't talking about that. It sounded like his formal education had just stopped, leaving him to figure everything else out on his own.

Harry wasn't learning by performing his own research; he hadn't gotten far enough in his education for that. No, he was still learning from what this world already knew about magic. He'd been all but abandoned. He didn't have anybody else in this city to give him guidance, and he didn't sound like he had a long-distance mentor who pointed him in the right direction through phone calls or letters, even. It was just him, Bob, and whatever books he could find.

It seemed as if this world was trying to cripple him! Of course, Xander had only his own perceptions to go upon, and he was new here. Maybe he was seeing things oddly because of his own past, or because he didn't know how this world functioned. Maybe it was normal to only give someone half an education and then expect them to learn the rest on their own. Maybe Harry was a bad student. Maybe he'd just had a bad teacher. Xander couldn't know, so he should really give the benefit of the doubt. But it made him so angry! How could he be just left on his own like this, half-educated and probably more of a target and a danger this way than even untrained?

Of course, not everybody in Xander's world got the training they deserved. Shit happened, and sometimes it wasn't really anybody's fault. But they tried to make sure that everybody got what they deserved, and they tried hard. Something like this, with Harry halfway educated and still interested in magic, yet thrown away like a pair of socks with holes in the toes, that wouldn't happen back home. There, it was all or nothing: if somebody slipped through the cracks, they did it completely, nobody heard even a whisper of their existence or they were tracked down and offered a chance. And if they were found, and interested, they received as much of an education as they could stand to receive—goddess knew there were enough scholarships out there for anybody who wanted to study magic, no matter how poor they were, to be able to afford it. Sometimes people left before they got a complete education—some people just weren't cut out for the entire course of magic study—but it was always their choice.

Harry loved magic. That was obvious even through his relative clumsiness with it—those wards might not be works of art, but Xander could feel the care that had gone into them. He'd talked enough magic with Harry, and seen him brewing potions with that spirit in a skull of his even when he didn't have to, to see that he enjoyed magic. He advertised as a wizard, for crying out loud! That was not the action of a man who wanted nothing to do with magic. And it wasn't that he'd gone as far as he'd wanted to go, either; he was obviously trying to learn more magic on his own. No, he hadn't quit his education by his own free will.

It could be some issue between him and whoever had been in charge of his apprenticeship, of course. That would make the most sense, at least outside of options that condemned this entire world. It would make sense for him to leave a situation that he hated, and yet continue to study on his own, if he loved the subject matter but hated whoever was teaching it to him. Or if his Master had independently chosen to end his apprenticeship before most apprenticeships would have ended. That didn't speak ill of this world, either; there were assholes in every world, and Harry might just have gotten lucky and run into one. But based on everything Xander had heard of this world's organization, he was inclined to think that it was systematic, at least to some degree.

"I guess that makes sense," Xander said. "And since this world's still on an apprenticeship system, I'm betting that the latest developments don't spread very far or very fast, so you wouldn't know about them."

"No . . . how does your world do things, if you don't have apprenticeships?"

"Well, there used to be apprenticeships. And honestly, I think that back then a lot more people learned from books than from the apprenticeship system. It . . . wasn't always very pretty. I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of things that can happen when someone teaches themself to levitate a pencil, and then the only book they can find on magic is one of those ones that's, like, bound in human skin." The horror on Harry's face showed that he had some idea of what Xander was talking about. "But after the First destroyed the Watchers' Council, and we had to rebuild, we wound up with a lot more students than there were people who knew what they were doing, so we arranged things more like a school, from the very basics up through the PhD level."

"And that worked?"

"Well, we kept the classes small. And we were a bit worried about becoming inflexible, or missing things because they fell between disciplines—you know, if you have a class in evocation and a class in wards, how are you going to learn about ritual magic?—so we didn't standardize in the same way that other schools do. So it's probably not exactly what you're thinking of. But yeah, it worked."

"And you think your magical advancements spread farther and faster because of it?"

"Well, maybe not directly because of it. I mean, it's not like most of the students were at a level where they could really use most of the latest research. But because we took the modern academic approach to magical education rather than the middle ages approach with apprenticeships and guilds and shit, we did the same with the latest developments. Modern scientific journals about magic, our own printing press to bring out any books anybody wrote, the whole works. We're all on the same side, except for the people who aren't of course, so we acted like it and shared all of the information we could. It's a kindergarten skill, right? And some of the people coming up with the system passed kindergarten with flying colors. Once it was the way things were done, everybody started doing it rather than the old way of writing your books by hand and keeping your research secret from everybody other than your apprentices. And there wasn't as much of the situation where two people discover the same thing and waste half their effort, because everybody knew what everybody else had done before."

"And wards were one of those things?"

"Yeah, of course. Wards were always a popular subject, because, again, studying for the sake of people who were on the front lines. A threshold might keep you safe from a lot of random dangers, but you really need wards if you're going to be making a target of yourself. And people kept hoping that they could solve the discretion versus effectiveness puzzle."

"The discretion versus effectiveness puzzle?"

"Yeah. You know, how you can protect yourself from pretty much anything if you make your wards powerful enough, but that takes more power than anybody realistically has. And without completely ridiculous levels of power, you're stuck doing the balancing act between enough power to keep you safe, and a small enough amount of power that monsters aren't actually drawn to the place that you've warded, because the stronger your wards are the more powerful the beings who are drawn to it are going to be, and nobody can last forever against an enemy too much more powerful than they are, especially when bigger monsters keep getting drawn in."

"So what's the solution?"

"It's a question of the ages. There were some people looking into some alternate power sources—drawing from something that would have more than enough energy for any ward you want to use it for, which is risky in and of itself. There were some people who were looking into somehow getting the wards to blend into the ambient magic—the theory behind that is that if you get it exactly right, they'll blend into the background magic, no matter how powerful the wards are, which always seemed like a crackpot theory to me. And then there's my favorite, constructing wards that are lighter when they're on standby, so to speak, but when they're attacked they pull up stronger wards."

"But none of those work?"

"Not really. Working off of the first theory, a few people have gotten themselves killed by channeling way too much energy. The second one just hasn't worked right, but at least there haven't been any deaths directly associated with it. And as for the last, we've gotten to the point where we can get the heavier wards to start up, but either they collapse after a couple of seconds or the person who built the wards does, since it pulls the energy from them all at once. Sometimes both happen. Not really what you want to happen when you're getting attacked."

"No, definitely not. You're really familiar with these theories."

"I have my PhD in Ward Construction," Xander said. "And since it's one of the few areas of magic that I'm actually interested in, I read all of the latest research about it."

"You have your PhD in Ward Construction? But...how?"

"I just told you about how people are taught magic in my world," Xander said. "I just took the classes, wrote the papers, took the tests, did the homework, did the research...and voila! Ward Construction PhD!"

"But you're..." Harry struggled to find the words, and finally just blurted it out. "Fourteen!"

Xander rolled his eyes. "I am not fourteen. I told you that before. I'm 321. It's not my fault you don't believe me."

"But you're..." Harry gestured at Xander's body.

"I told you," Xander said, "I got deaged. Horrible accident, yeah, but it's not something anybody can undo, and I kind of like having all of my body parts working correctly, for a change."

"If you're not fourteen, why did you agree to stay with me and go to school?" Harry asked, a note of triumph in his voice.

"Because I might not mind living on the streets much, but I'm kind of used to living with other people—it's kind of weird to be completely alone nowadays, and sleeping anywhere that doesn't have a threshold and wards makes me even more paranoid than usual. And I look like I'm fourteen. I probably don't know the same things that people would expect me to know if I graduated high school really early, especially about history because I'm not from this world and didn't even pay attention to my own world's history, so if I'm going to live with you the only way we're going to keep things from looking even weirder than they already look is if I do what normal fourteen year olds do, which is go to school. Which I don't really mind, anyway. I've been kind of bored since I got to this world, and at least going to school will take up some of my time."

Harry still looked a bit skeptical, but there was maybe a glimmer of belief mixed in with it. It was the best Xander had hoped for. Harry didn't seem like somebody whose opinion was easy to change, once he'd made up his mind, and he'd definitely already made up his mind about Xander's age. "I think you're the first person I've ever met who's eager to go back to high school."

"Hey! I am not *eager*. I just don't have much better to do," Xander said. "Besides, I've always kind of wondered what high school is like when you go to one that doesn't have the kind of death rate that mine had."

"What kind of death rate did your high school have?"

"My graduating class had the lowest rate in the history of the school up to that point, thanks to the efforts of me and my friends. We managed to get it all the way down to 40%."

"40%?!" Harry choked.

"That's only for the high school years, of course, not including all the kids who died before high school. And we didn't stop saving lives and kicking demon ass after we graduated, so it's entirely possible that future classes beat our record, since we didn't start until sophomore year. But still, it's something to be proud of."

"40% is...how could there be that high of a death rate? Didn't anybody do anything about it?"

"Yeah," Xander said. "We did."

"But the police, your parents! People just stayed there and kept sending their kids to a school where that many kids died?"

"What would the police or our parents have been able to do?" Xander asked. "It wasn't humans that killed them, it was demons. There's nowhere you can go to get away from them, not entirely, and on some level everybody knows that. Just like they know that if they get too curious, too interested in that kind of crime, it's not going to help anybody. They'd just end up dead, and on some level they knew it. The only safe thing if you don't know how to fight back is to make yourself not a target, as far as you can manage it, and that means not making a big fuss about the wild dog attacks, or the runaway kids, or the gangs on PCP, or the strangely frequent accidents with barbecue forks."

"That's so normal in your world that you can't move away from it? It happens so much that even vanilla humans know about it?"

"I can't say that it's that frequent everywhere, because it isn't. My hometown was the location of the Hellmouth that was active at that time, which attracted demons from all over, so there were always more of them and of strange deaths than most other places. But in general? Yeah, that happened everywhere. Maybe not to the same extent, but enough that those instincts to keep out of it never died away, even among completely normal humans who didn't live anywhere dangerous."

"That's just..." Harry looked like he couldn't even think of the words for it.

"Home sweet Hellmouth," Xander said. "It's normal to me. So going to school here might be a bit weird. What do teenagers do with their time when they don't have to fight demons, anyway?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Don't ask me. I didn't exactly spend a lot of time with normal teenagers even when I was a teenager. And Elaine and I practiced magic, mostly."

"Elaine?"

"She was my first...everything. And Justin's other apprentice."

Xander might not be the most perceptive person in the world when it came to civilians, but he'd spent nearly his whole life surrounded by people who all had things that they didn't want to talk about, and he recognized the signs, so he backed off. Justin was, presumably, that bad Master that he'd told Xander about briefly. That sounded like it was a barrel of monkeys that needed to be examined sooner rather than later, before it came back to bit Harry (and the people close to him) on the ass, but 'sooner' did not mean 'now'.

"Cool," he said, and left it at that. "I'm actually not very interested in magic—well, wards aside, but at the level I'm at it's pretty much pure research into new methods, and it's way too frustrating to work on it all day every day, because, you know, cutting edge, you have a lot of failures even when you work out the math as well as you can work it out. So I guess I'll have to find something else to do with my spare time. Maybe I can get back into woodcarving or something."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I used to do a bit of woodcarving. Nothing too fancy, it just seemed like a logical hobby after all the stakes I carved and the construction work I did for a while. And it's pretty helpful in ward construction, too."

"No, not about the woodcarving. What do you mean about the math? There isn't much math involved in magic."

"There doesn't have to be. But it's kind of like physics. You don't need to know about gravity and all the math behind it to throw a baseball, but if you're making a serious study of the physics behind throwing a baseball, you need to do a lot of math. And if you want to put a baseball into orbit, you'll definitely need to do some math and get it right. It's the same thing with magic. You can take the artistic method, sure, and that works great for a lot of people, but you can also treat it like a science, which is primarily how I practice magic when I have to. So I do math, especially at this level—no need to set up and try to pull off something major if it's not even theoretically possible, right?"

"But how do you know the math? Is that one of the things that's been around forever in your world, just like all those demons that wander around killing high school kids?"

"Actually, no. See, we had this consultant. Dr. Charlie Eppes, who's primarily a mathematician who teaches at CalSci. He sometimes did some work for government agencies, and when his brother started working for the government counterpart of my group, Dr. Eppes jumped on that opportunity to be closer to his brother and started consulting for them. And the thing is, we might technically be separate groups, but we end up working together so often that we pretty much consider ourselves the same group with two different payrolls. They have people semi-permanently placed within SWCI, and we have people semi-permanently placed with them. So Dr. Eppes worked with us a lot too, although not quite as much since he started out mainly being in it to be close to his brother. And Dr. Eppes started getting into magic, because as you might imagine it comes up quite a bit in our line of work, on one side or the other. And because he thinks that everything can be explained by math, except occasionally people because people are crazy, he started working out the math behind magic, which had never been done before. I mean, it's magic, right? It defies explanation, much less quantification. That's what everybody else thought, even once we kicked off our little magical revolution, but Dr. Eppes proved us wrong and figured out the math behind a good deal of the magic he encountered. Of course, once he proved it was possible, other people jumped on the wagon and expanded on his work, but he's the first one who figured it out. And he was actually a Blank."

"A Blank?"

"Yeah, you know, somebody who isn't sensitive to magic at all?"

"You mean just normal humans?"

"What? No! Blanks are, like, less than half a percent of the population. Maybe even a lot less than half a percent, since we weren't able to do a comprehensive survey. But it's really, really recessive. I mean, if it was common, I don't think humanity would have survived. That sense of magic is what keeps people from doing really stupid things, instead of just normally-stupid things. It's what makes people ignore the fact that their cashier has blue skin and really sharp teeth. It's what makes them ignore those really loud animal noises from outside, and stay inside with the TV turned up loud. Yeah, some of us have managed to totally break that part that makes us sensible like that, so we run straight towards the danger when it's around, but Blanks don't even know that there is danger to run towards."

"Maybe that's true in your world, but here it's the other way around. There are a handful of wizards and practitioners, but everybody else is just a vanilla human, what you call a Blank."

"But...that's crazy!" Xander said. "I mean, your world's ridiculously safe compared to back home, but there's still got to be some dangers lurking around here somewhere. How do they stay safe? How could your world evolve to have so few people who can do magic?"

"Like you said, there's not very many dangers here," Harry said. "They mostly don't need to stay safe, because they don't run into anything dangerous and magical. How could your world evolve to have so many people who do magic? I don't know any more than you do; I wasn't around when it happened."

"I know that one, actually. There's a demonic historian who wrote a history of human magic. He's pretty famous for his histories, since they're insanely well-researched—I mean, he's interviewed some beings that scare the shit out of *everybody*. Plus, he was there for some of it, since his species lives ridiculously long times. The part that we know for certain is true—not that we doubt any of the rest of it, but there's so much independent verification of this part that nobody doubts it even a little bit—is that way back in the beginning, demons ruled Earth, and they weren't the cute and friendly demons that are there now, but serious monsters beyond anything that presently walks the Earth. The rest isn't quite as well documented, but it's still amazing. He says that since humans were prey to basically everything around at the time, we would have been wiped out if we hadn't managed to adapt to be able to keep ourselves safe from them. And because most demons basically leak magic, because they or their ancestors were originally native to dimensions with higher levels of ambient magic, what happened was that humans evolved so that we could feel them coming, so we'd be able to get away from them. The humans who didn't have this ability were, of course, killed earlier and more often than the humans who did have this ability, so those genes got passed down through the generations and the others didn't, until nearly everybody in the world can sense magic. Of course, everybody can *use* magic, it's just a lot harder when you can't feel it at all, and Blanks tend to have magic channels that aren't as capable of handling normal amounts of work if they're given it, at least not without a lot of preparatory work."

"So your world used to be all demons, all the time?"

"Yep."

"This one wasn't, at least not as far as I've ever heard, and I'd think that that would be something that I would have been told."

"There's always the possibility that nobody else knows, either. Or that they just didn't want to tell you, for some reason, or thought that you'd already been told."

"I wouldn't put it past Justin, and I suppose Ebenezar might have thought that Justin had told me, if that was true. I'll have to ask Bob later. But really, I think that that's the big difference, that this world wasn't a demonpalooza back in the day and yours was."

"So you're saying that my world did a survival of the fittest thing, and yours didn't have to, so your world has hardly has anybody who can do magic? That's kind of fucked up."

"It kind of is. As great as all of that magical advancement in your world sounds like, I don't think I'd want to live there, if it's so dangerous that it actually affected the evolution of human beings."

"That was a long time ago," Xander argued. "Yeah, we've got a bit more danger, but not that much, not any more. I mean, even for people living on a Hellmouth, things are safe enough if they stay inside after dark. There's some demons that hunt during the day, but most of the really bad ones hunt at night. And there's more of a warning about the ones that attack during the day. Hardy anybody dies from them other than Blanks."

"'Hardly' anybody?" Harry asked. "That doesn't sound like 'nobody'."

"Yeah, but people die from just getting attacked by humans, too, and how often does that happen?" Xander scoffed. "Maybe I'm biased. I mean, it's my job, and I've been doing it since I was fifteen the first time around, so obviously I love it. But as stressful as it might sometimes be to have to stop the apocalypse on a regular basis, it's better than doing nothing, or living a life that goes nowhere, which is pretty much where I'm sure I'd be if there weren't so many demons, vampires, and forces of darkness to fight. I mean, I barely passed high school and definitely couldn't afford college. I would have been stuck in low-paying dead end jobs until I died if I hadn't had the fight."

"You don't have it now," Harry said. "We don't have apocalypses happen here."

"Not at *all*?" Xander asked incredulously.

"Not that I've ever heard, and you'd hope that that would be the kind of word that would spread," Harry said. "So what are you going to do, since you won't be stopping apocalypses?"

Xander sighed. "I guess I'll just take it one day at a time until I can find something good. That's how I've led my whole life up until this point, I might as well keep doing what works. For now, I have school, and my job, and a couple of other things that I've been doing for the hell of it."

"You have a job?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You're fourteen, it's not legal for you to work, and definitely not without your guardian's permission."

"It's an under the table job," Xander said. "And I'm not a kid, so regardless of what the law says about child labor, don't make this an issue between us, because I need to have stuff to do with my time, or I'll go mad with boredom."

"Hey," Harry said, hands up in an 'I didn't mean any harm' gesture. "I didn't mean it like that. Just be careful, alright? I don't think that they arrest the kid who's working if they catch them, but it'd definitely get your boss in trouble and get you taken away from me."

"Fine," Xander said, rolling his eyes. "I'll be careful. It's not going to be anything that'll be any sort of a problem, anyway."

"I trust your judgement. I just didn't know if you were aware."

Xander shrugged. "Your world has so many weird laws to protect kids. Teenagers, even! I'm still getting used to it. Actually, I'm not sure I'll ever get all the way used to it."

"Your world doesn't?"

"Of course not," Xander said. "I mean, yeah, sure, it has laws to protect *little* kids, but teenagers? Teenagers can take care of themselves, and trying to shelter them from the real world isn't effective and tends to end up hurting them, since then when they're grown up and on their own they haven't learned how to be smart back when they still had the support of their family and friends, since everybody moves apart after they graduate. Back in Sunnydale...well, that was another story." He fell silent.

"What do you mean?"

"Sunnydale was run by a man who was planning to ascend to be a higher demon, and he had everything set up just the way he wanted it. Federal and state cops and services weren't allowed within the town limits, and since it was built on top of the Hellmouth, there was always so much ambient magic that if any of them decided to come to town anyway, they always ended up turning back right at the city limits. And there were some people who took advantage of that, or were influenced by something into taking advantage of it."

"That doesn't sound good."

"It really isn't. We had all these laws and services set up to protect kids from getting hurt, at least by humans, and they didn't do a bit of good within the Sunnydale city limits because it's not like the local cops were going to do anything. They were, as far as we were able to determine, some combination of paid off by the Mayor—and I'm not talking money, at least not in all of their cases—and so full of survival instincts that they wouldn't do anything that would threaten their lives. My best friend Willow had parents who travelled at least ten months out of the year, at least from third grade on. I think they were around more often before then, but I'm not sure. My parents were drunks. I got taken in to the emergency room with bruises and broken bones often enough that everybody there knew me by name, and nothing was done about it. Both of us knew how to cook our own food without burning the house down before we even got to middle school. Anywhere else, that wouldn't have happened. Or, well, there are always cases that manage to slip through the cracks, so I won't say that it absolutely would not have happened, because there are no absolutes. But in our cases, it was obvious enough that chances are it would have been stopped. CPS would have stepped in, and we'd have been in foster families before long."

"That's horrible."

Xander shrugged. "That was Sunnydale. I think that there were some demons that fed on abused children or something in the town, because while the Mayor might have been a slimy politician in all senses of the word, he did do a lot of good things for the town other than that and the whole ascending to demonhood thing. And some of it might have just been his cover, but...well, I had a friend who joined his side for a while, and when she's drunk enough to talk about him she always said that he treated her like a father should treat his daughter. And he didn't have to do that. She didn't expect to be treated as anything other than an employee, or even a minion, and he treated her like she was his daughter, and paid for her medical care when she fell into a coma, and left her everything in his will—not that he expected his will to ever be used, what with the turning into a demon thing, but he wrote it anyway, and left her *everything*. And no matter how hard I look, I can't see any benefit for him in doing that. She didn't even know that he did it until a few years after the town was destroyed, which happened four years after the Mayor tried to ascend, and we killed him."

"She was on his side, and yet she's your friend? Or was that past tense?"

"She came into town, was part of the gang for a while. Then there was a blue-on-blue incident and she accidentally killed the deputy mayor. There was a fight, and she went off and joined the Mayor. She wasn't exactly on the side of the light after that, but after some stuff happened, she turned herself in to the police and did some jail time, and she was on our side again. She's been my left hand since before I was made the head of SWCI."

"Your left hand? Isn't the phrase normally your right hand?"

"Well, yeah, but I used to be missing my left eye, so my left hand was just a bit more important to me, since that's the one I trusted to guard my vulnerable side. I never had a right hand who managed to last longer than a few years—being near the top wasn't exactly the safest of places to be. A lot of people refused to get that close, and the rest died or retired for one reason or another before they'd done the job for long."

"Near the top? You never said anything about being highly placed in your organization."

"Well, yeah, I was the head of it for a while, but that was kind of an accident. When we're trying to decide who's going to take a higher office, what we do is first we eliminate people from the running, because there are some people who it's universally agreed would be bad at the job, or who wouldn't do the job even if they were decided in favor of—the really reluctant ones, I mean. The ones who would just slack off are among the ones it's agreed would be bad at the job. And then, since nobody actually wants to be promoted and have to do more work for less reward, there's a countdown and then everybody says 'not it', and whoever's the last person to say it is forced into the position."

"So you said 'not it' last?"

"I was late to the meeting, and they'd already done it by the time I got there. They refused to do it over again, so I got forced into it."

"Are you sure they didn't just want you to be the head of your organization?"

"That's not likely, except for the obvious not wanting to be forced into it themselves thing. I might have been at SWCI since it was founded, but I spent the first few years of it not even having much to do with the rest of them because I was wandering around Africa looking for Slayers. I got a little bit more involved once I settled down at the African headquarters—we used to have all these conference calls with everybody on different continents—but I still wasn't as involved as the rest of the Scooby Council, since Africa's problems mostly stayed in Africa, so they should have preferred anybody else on the Council, somebody they knew better than me."

"Maybe they just didn't like anybody else very much?"

"The Scooby Council always has its problems and personality clashes, but it's rarely anything serious. And they wouldn't be on the Scooby Council if they weren't able to look past their personal issues to what's best for SWCI and the world."

"What about your reputation? They wouldn't have to know you well personally to have heard stories about you."

"What's there to tell? I'm boring, as far as SWCI goes. The only thing that ever stuck out about me was how long I lasted without dying, and I was still pretty young when I was made the head of SWCI."

"Hey, I don't know anything about what's normal or abnormal in your world or for people who work for SWCI like you did, but you're not normal for this world. Are you sure you're normal for your world?"

"I'm telling you, the only odd thing about me is that I lasted a long time without dying. I don't have any more magic than most people have, I'm not some supergenius or anything, and I don't have any whacky powers or anything."

"And you know more about magic than...well, I'm not experienced enough to say for sure, but I'm pretty sure you're right up there with the Senior Council."

"The Senior Council? I thought that it was the White Council."

"It is, the Senior Council is made up of the oldest and most distinguished members of the White Council."

"What? I'm sure I don't know as much as they do. They've been into magic their whole lives, I've just been forced to study it as part of the general requirements of SWCI. They've probably been studying it as much as they possibly can their whole lives, and I've been trying really hard to get out of having to study it, and avoiding it as much as possible when I can't."

"I haven't seen you in action, but I'm pretty sure that you are just as good as they are, based on all that theory you've told me about and the fact that you got through my wards without destroying them. Maybe better, considering all of that magical advancement in your world."

"That's a ridiculous idea," Xander said. "Seriously, don't even think things like that, or you'll end up in a padded room somewhere, in a jacket that you can't get off by yourself."

"I'll think whatever I want to think," Harry said. "And I think that if the men in white coats were going to come and get me, they would have done it when I started advertising as a wizard in the phone book."

***

 

The next day was productive. Xander got all of the remaining appliances and other electric devices in the apartment upgraded with heavy duty Tesla Compensators, and tested them by screwing lightbulbs into all of the empty sockets and taking a nice warm shower. Hopefully Harry would appreciate the convenience more than he'd mind the extra cost on his electricity bill.

He also went back and visited Snake again. Snake was, predictably, bored out of his mind, as the television in his hospital room was still broken. Xander figured that he could at least offer a little bit of a diversion, talk to him while he was there and leave him something to do for after he had to leave. He'd found some books on Russian at a used book store he stopped by. He hadn't learned Russian himself, so he couldn't say anything about the quality of the books he'd found, but they'd hopefully be enough to get Snake started on writing to his friend. Hopefully he wouldn't have too much trouble with the dictionary—somebody had gone through it and blacked out a few entries. But what were the odds that Snake would want to use those particular words in his letter? They probably weren't any words that he'd miss being able to use.

Snake grumbled a bit at the books. Yeah, yeah, he wasn't the bookish type—that was obviously why he was so unhappy about having a pen pal—but short of finding somebody who spoke Russian and sneaking them past Snake's guard, there wasn't any other way for Snake to learn enough Russian to try to write to his pen pal. Xander didn't know for sure that Snake wanted to write to him in Russian, but it only seemed courteous to at least try to communicate in a person's native language, to try to learn the native language of your friends. They had gone through the trouble of learning English, after all; wouldn't it be rude to expect them to make all of the effort in the relationship? Snake didn't think a lot about being courteous, but Xander was working to make him more friendly to people, so he'd taken it upon himself to explain this to him.

Snake looked like he was halfway to jumping out of his bed and attacking Xander, which was nothing new when Xander was trying to convince him to be friendlier, but as always he held himself back. He had such good self-control in this area, why didn't he apply it to other areas of his life? This time, though, there was something different about Snake.

"So," he said, ignoring the books with a force of will. "Heaven and Hell."

"Uh, yes?" Xander said, not understanding what Snake was trying to say.

"They're real?"

"I don't know about here or anything," Xander warned. "We were never able to determine whether there's one Heaven and one Hell that everybody from all the realities goes to, or if each reality had its own. So we know that they're real back home, but whether that means anything for here..." he shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"So, maybe then?"

"Maybe." Xander said firmly.

"How do they decide who goes where?" Snake asked.

"Mostly, we don't know," Xander said. "And of course things could be completely different here."

"Well, yeah, but what do you know?"

"People who make deals with demons obviously go to Hell, no matter how good or evil a person they are. That's the point of a Deal: you get whatever it is you asked for, and your soul goes to Hell. And the person who went to Heaven had saved the world a few times."

Snake waited for more, but nothing more was forthcoming. "That's it?

What about everybody else?"

Xander shrugged. "We don't know. Not for sure, anyway. There are people in Heaven who haven't saved the world, and people in Hell who didn't make Deals, but that's the extent of our knowledge about what qualifies or disqualifies you from either one."

"But how do you know if you've done too much to make up for it?" Snake asked.

"You don't," Xander said. "But the default assumption should always be that if you're willing to do good deeds, you haven't done too much bad to get out of going to Hell. I've known some people with a lot of red in their ledger, and they felt that it was worth it to balance out what they could, even though some of them thought that nothing they did would be enough to make up for it. What does it get you if you're successful? What are you losing if you're not? Even if there's nothing for you to gain in the afterlife, what does it hurt you to help when you can?"

"But I'm not some goody two-shoes," Snake said.

Xander snorted. "And what, you think I am? You don't have to pretend you're somebody you're not, to make things better, or to minimize how much worse you're making them if you're less ambitious. I mean, yeah, little old ladies or whatever probably aren't going to trust you—actually, on second thought, a lot of those little old ladies are tough bitches. They probably wouldn't have any problem forcing you to help them across the street, if they wanted the help. But middle-class accountants or whoever. They're probably not going to trust you, but that's not the whole world, you know. There's people all over that wouldn't mind a tough guy being their knight in shining armor, if that's how you want to help out. Keep your neighborhood free of muggers and rapists or something, if you want to do something positive and get into fights at the same time. Make sure that the people around you are as safe as you can make them. Help out with the things that need to be helped out with. You don't have to pretend that you're not you, even when you're making the world a better place."

"I'm a criminal!" Snake protested. "You think I'm going to make the world a better place?"

"You're mostly a smuggler," Xander said. "As far as I can see, you're not hurting very many people. Yeah, you're supporting getting people hurt, which is probably not going to look very good on your karmic record, but it's a hell of a lot better than doing it yourself. And you're not so old that you don't have time to make up for the red on your ledger, if you decide you want to. But making the world a better place? I'll warn you now, it's hard. There are some people who will try to convince you that it's easier than the alternative, but it's not. The good guys won't trust you because you used to be a bad guy, and the bad guys won't trust you because now you're a good guy. And hopefully, somewhere in there there'll be people who will trust you, and will love you for who you are and not who they wish you were, but they're always the minority."

"Did you...?"

"Me? Nah. But my organization back home used to be big into redemption. We tried to always judge people based on their current actions, not what they'd done in the past or even what they wished they were doing in the present. It didn't always work, and there were constantly arguments about who exactly should be allowed in and who shouldn't, but we tried...a lot harder than most, I think. But I've seen a lot of people over the years, struggling for redemption or doing good despite thinking that they can never make up for their pasts, and even a few who were doing good even though it was about their last choice in the world."

"And they...do you think they ever succeeded? At finding redemption?"

"I'm almost certain that some of them did," Xander said. "I can't say for sure, of course, but for the things that they did...there's no justice in the universe if they're suffering after that. Others fell off the path. They couldn't stay on it long enough to accomplish much before they went back to their old lives. And some died before they could prove themselves. I don't know about them. Maybe they'll be judged by their intentions at the end of their lives. Maybe that won't count for much. I couldn't say one way or another."

"But there's got to be some sort of limit to redemption, right? Some point where someone's done so much bad stuff that they can't ever make up for it?"

"I hope not," Xander said fervently. "I have a friend. Well, had, now that I don't live there anymore. He's immortal, so hopefully he won't be dying any time soon."

"Even I know that immortal means he won't ever die."

"Hopefully. But he's a kind of immortal that can die if his head's cut off, and his people have these duels to the death all the time, so it's far from certain."

"Kind of a stupid name, then."

"Well, yeah, but I didn't name them. So anyway, back during the Bronze Age him and some friends of his spent about a thousand years riding around on horses, killing, raping, razing cities, you name it, they did it."

"That doesn't sound like the kind of person you'd want to spend a lot of time with."

"Not back then, no. But by the time I got to know him, he was nothing like that. He'd turned his life around, completely, and if he hadn't admitted it and others hadn't known who he was, it would have been impossible to even imagine. He wasn't the same person that he was back then. And he might have had more time than the rest of us get, but he was doing the same thing that a lot of mortals do, turn their lives around and do some good in the world. He deserves redemption if anybody does. The rest of us might be working on a smaller scale, but it's the same idea. There's nothing so bad that it can't be balanced out, eventually. Maybe there are things that can't be entirely erased, or even made up for, but they can be balanced out, if there's enough time and effort."

"Are you sure?" Snake sounded very young just at that moment.

"There's nothing sure in life," Xander said. "But I'm as sure about this as I can be. If you want to turn things around? You can do it. If you don't, well, you can succeed at that too, but if it turns out that there is some punishment in the end...well, you know what'll happen. But don't live for whatever comes next. Live for this life. Because it might be the only one you get. Are you doing things that you can live with? Or have you just not stopped for long enough to think about them?"

"I—"

Xander stopped him. "You don't need to tell me anything. This is entirely your choice, and it's not one that you make once, it's one that you make every minute of every day, whether you're conscious of it or not. Sometimes you choose to add good to the world, sometimes you choose to add bad to it. Everybody does the same. The only thing you can change is how often you choose good and how often you choose bad."

"Church never made it sound that easy when I was a kid," Snake said suspiciously.

"Well, I've got nothing to do with any church. As far as I can see, churches tend to make things too complicated. They've got all those people coming in and asking questions and bringing their own opinions, so the preachers have to answer those questions and put their own opinions out there. And the world's complicated, and full of so many things, that once you add a few opinions and answers together it starts to spiral into craziness. You think, if there's some god out there, he's going to care about what clothes people wear or what food they eat? Or do you think he's going to look at the big picture and say 'well, these people didn't obey every rule in the Bible, or Qur'an, or whatever, but they did their best to make the world a better place, so I'm going to reward them'?"

"But then why are there so many rules in the Bible?"

"Maybe it's because some people don't know what's the right thing to do. So whoever was writing it down, back in the day—let's ignore the question of if it was actually divinely inspired—that guy thought up the most general rules that he figured everybody should live by. I mean, don't murder, that's a no-brainer, right? And don't steal, and the rest. Even if you don't agree with them completely—because there's always those situations where somebody has the choice between letting his kids starve to death and stealing—you can agree that they're generally good rules to live by. And maybe a few more were sensible at the time, but they're not necessarily sensible right now because things are different. Like I heard that the one against eating pork was originally because at the time they couldn't cook it right so that whatever diseases were in it would be killed by the heat, but we can cook it right now. And a few more were added on that weren't necessarily universally accepted as good, but were just that guy's opinion. Which you figure has to happen in pretty much any book. And in the end, that's a lot of rules, when probably most of them boil down to the same thing: do the most good and the least harm that you can manage to do. But people get attached to their rules."

"That makes sense, I guess," Snake said. "I guess."

"Hey, it's just my opinion. And I don't do religion if I can help it, so it's not really an informed opinion."

"Yeah, but...it makes sense. More than, you know, god up in the clouds with angels, and the devil down in Hell with demons, caring about every little thing we do."

"Well...I'm glad I helped? Even if I'm not sure how I did."

Snake smiled at him, a little. "You sure don't know much, do you?" he teased.

"Nope," Xander admitted cheerfully. "I'm just making it up as I go. Just like everybody else, as far as I can tell."

It was like an epiphany had come to Snake. "Making it up as you go, just like everybody else..." he said wonderingly, but didn't share what he was thinking beyond that.

Xander glanced at the clock. "Damn, visiting hours are almost over."

"Aw man, already?" Snake said.

"Unfortunately. And you're getting transferred out of here soon, since you're almost healed."

"Prison," Snake said heavily.

"Yeah," Xander said. "And I don't know how often I'll be able to visit, or even if I'll be able to. So this is the address I'm staying at, at least for now." He passed over a sheet of paper with Harry's address on it. "With any luck, I'll be staying there for a few years, at least. So any time you feel like it, you can write to me, and I'll write back to you, I promise. I know that you don't like writing, but we don't really have a lot of options."

Snake took the paper. "Thanks. I might just write to you. But don't expect no perfect spelling or nothing, okay? I didn't even go to high school."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Xander said. "You don't have to be perfect. Just do your best."

"My best isn't that good," Snake warned.

"Even if it's not? It's still your best. You can't do any better than that. All you can do is improve what your best is, if you want to. It's not like I'm going to force you to."

"I don't know if I can get better. It's too late for me."

"I don't believe that there is such a thing as 'too late'," Xander said. "Yeah, it's always going to be harder to do things, the later you do them in life, but it is *never* too late, not if you want to do them."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm as sure about that as I possibly can be," Xander said, "which is pretty damn sure."


	2. Chapter 2

To Xander's surprise (because when were things ever this easy? It was enough to make him paranoid. Or more paranoid, whichever.), the social worker who had his case didn't act like he was looking for any excuse to get Xander out of Harry's reach. There was, of course, a certain amount of suspicion (or was that cautiousness?), but that was to be expected, even for people who weren't cursed with Xander's luck. But he didn't jump on every little thing that wasn't just perfect, even though he could have—despite their efforts, they hadn't managed to get everything right. Xander had to wonder if maybe John hadn't gone a bit farther than he'd said that he would, but even though he had an opportunity to ask when the man spoke to him alone, that didn't seem like a very nice question to ask. After all, it didn't seem likely at all that John had simply asked the man nicely to help Xander out, and with people's pride being the way it was, it was cruel to poke at their ethical lapses, especially when the result of them benefitted him.

It was kind of interesting to be on this side of the questioning. With all of the girls, and occasionally boys, that he'd given a home to, he'd been suspected of being a child molester on many occasions. Well, he'd never expected anything different, a man living in a house full of teenage girls; the eye patch certainly had not helped, although he was pretty sure that the empty socket would have made an even worse first impression. The questioning was gentler from this side, trying to elicit information rather than scare him into either confessing or changing his evil ways. Only his extensive experience being on the other side had kept him from completely breaking down and laughing. It was a suspicious situation, and this was necessary, he knew that. But that didn't make the thought that there were people in this world who could make him do anything he didn't want to do any less hilarious.

With that ordeal over, Xander had to get ready for school. John refused to let him start working until he had settled in to his new school, too, so Xander was eager to get that first day over with, but there was still time left before the spring semester started. Harry dragged him out to shop for school supplies, apologizing a few times that they needed to buy the cheapest available rather than the latest and greatest.

"I don't really care," Xander said. "Well, the backpack matters, because you know that the really low-end backpacks are badly made and will fall apart before you get your money's worth out of them. But paper? Pens and pencils? Notebooks? As long as I can write, I don't care."

***

 

 

School was…well, it was school. Xander hadn't been expecting much out of it. He remembered his days at Sunnydale High, and hadn't they been miserable except for the hunting? Even that hadn't always been very enjoyable. Back then, he'd done it because he couldn't stand by and not do anything, not because he had to do it: a subtle difference, but an important one. It had been a self-imposed duty back in those days, not his whole life like it had eventually become. So he'd been a bit less happy about hunting back then, since he was less used to it. Hunting wasn't something that was a problem to him these days, but he'd thought that going to high school would always be a problem to him.

Jack had been miserable at being returned to teenager-hood, but all he had ever seen in it was the loss of his old life and the restrictions placed on him because of his age. Despite what he liked to pretend, and the occasional reprimand for insubordination on his military record, he was far more of a rule follower than Xander had ever been. Xander wasn't as miserable as Jack had been before he'd really settled into SWCI; he'd never let a little thing like rules and expectations stop him from doing what he needed to do. But as far as he could tell, being miserable was a natural condition of being a teenager. He was holding on better than most he'd seen, but he certainly didn't expect going to high school to make his life more enjoyable. At least once he got started, he'd have his new job to balance it out. There wasn't likely to be much excitement there, either, but at least it promised to have plenty of warding for him to enjoy.

High school had been hard the first time around. Part of that was that he hadn't been used to hunting and patrolling back then, and adding that to whatever classes Willow had signed him up for that year hadn't made it any easier to learn what he needed to learn for tests, or even get all of the homework done. But even if all he'd had to worry about had been school, he thought it would have been difficult. All that research he'd done back then had been difficult, too, and so had the classes he'd been forced to take since then as part of SWCI's continuing education requirement. He just wasn't made to learn in a classroom like that. He always struggled when he had to sit in a classroom and learn, no matter what the subject was. He'd retaken most of his SWCI classes after he'd failed them (though not for lack of trying), some of them more than once. It was better to learn the subject well, even if that knowledge took him more time than it took others, than it was to scrape by with a barely-passing grade and forget everything the moment he was done taking the test. High school would not be that difficult, probably, or as full of important information that he needed to know and remember and be able to apply at a moment's notice.

He'd supposedly been homeschooled up to this point, with all evidence lost in a fire, so he had to take tests to determine which classes he belonged in. Taking them all in a row was, as expected, an exhausting experience, but nothing very noticeable compared to apocalypse research sessions. To his surprise, though, most of the tests didn't have much on them that he didn't know the answer to. He was pretty sure he hadn't known the answers back when he was in high school the first time, but one way or another he'd learned them over the time between then and now. All of the math on the math test was used, for one reason or another, in magical theory; in fact, he was pretty sure that he'd used even more advanced math than that in the past. He'd been so little pressed for time that he'd even taken the trouble to write out all of his work. Science wasn't as certain; it had never been a major emphasis at SWCI, except for magical science which was not taught here. The principles of science were the same no matter the branch, and he'd picked up some science here or there, so he was pretty sure he did alright, but it wasn't his strongest subject. English was fairly straightforward. He didn't know some of the terminology, but he could easily answer questions about passages. There were some words in the passages whose meaning he had to select; even if he hadn't seen them before, he was fluent enough in Latin and Greek that he would have been able to define them. The only big question in his mind was the short answer and essay questions. He'd done his best to answer the prompts, but he'd had enough red ink on his papers over the years to know that to some extent essays were always subjective. The result of that test would depend on how his grader took it.

History was the only test that he knew he'd done poorly on. This wasn't his world, and he'd never studied its history before, and on top of that he hadn't even studied his own world's history from a non-supernatural point of view since he'd graduated from high school, so he couldn't even rely on his memories of his world's history to make guesses about this world's history. The mundane view of the history of his world had been so different from the real history of his world that he'd forgotten the mundane version as soon as he hadn't had to take any more tests on it. He'd flunked that test, and badly; he'd known that as soon as he'd looked at the test.

Xander didn't pay any attention to what classes he was taking, just accepted whatever schedule the registrar suggested. He wasn't planning to have any use for any class he took, so it didn't really matter which ones he was in as long as he was signed up to go to school. He did pay some attention to the language class, but in the end he didn't have any choice there. The only one that still had any space available was Latin. As Latin was SWCI's official language, and used in a good deal of the books they had to research from, he was already fluent, or close enough for government work, so it had the advantage of being one class that he knew he'd have no problem doing well in.

Any other language, and he wasn't sure he could do well in it. He'd picked up enough French to communicate, back in Africa, but he wasn't sure if what he'd learned was even close to what they'd expect him to know in a class. He hadn't exactly been wandering around talking to people who spent their days worrying about if they were being grammatically correct, and he was pretty sure that a lot of what he knew was slang. As for learning a new language, he'd tried to learn French back at good old Sunnydale High School, and had failed miserably. It had only made any sense to him once he had actually gone out and learned it by talking to people who didn't speak English. That wasn't the only time something similar had happened to him. As part of SWCI's continuing education requirements, he'd had to take classes on languages a few different times, repeating some of them more than a dozen times with various teachers. He'd never gotten good enough at any of them to be advanced to the next level, no matter how hard or how long he tried. Learning languages in a classroom just didn't seem to work for him. After he'd managed to drive more than one foreign language teacher to refuse to try to teach him again, he'd been granted an exemption from having to study languages.

It had taken a while for anybody, even him, to notice that he'd managed to pick up enough of whatever language it was that Adam liked to rant in that he could respond to what he said, and even in that same language, albeit with what Adam declared a horrendous accent. He couldn't learn languages, everybody had thought. His brain was stuck on English. But, it turned out, he could learn them if the circumstances were right. If he had an actual use for them, aside from just sitting in a classroom talking to other beginning students. He'd learned Latin, and he hadn't even noticed that he had. It seemed like one day he'd had to translate painfully slowly, looking each word up in the dictionary as he came to it, and the next he'd been able to read it easily, without a second's hesitation.

It hadn't happened that quickly, of course. There was nothing magical about how he learned languages. He just needed a use for them before he could learn them, and he couldn't learn them in any sort of an organized manner. He learned best by doing, no matter what the subject was, and the only difference about languages was that he couldn't learn any other way. In the end, he was still exempted from attending any language classes; they wouldn't do him any good. But he'd learned a few more languages over the years—Adam had embarked on his own campaign to teach Xander some more languages, and started occasionally speaking only in a different language unless there was an apocalypse. It had led to more than a few strange and occasionally funny incidents when Xander had thought that he'd understood what was said, but he actually hadn't (Adam was still baffled about why Xander had thought that he'd actually said some of what Xander had thought that he'd said; clearly, he hadn't been at SWCI for long enough yet), but in the end it had been successful.

Of course, other than Latin (and, marginally, French), none of the languages Xander had learned were taught at his new school. Between the languages which Xander encountered because they were the ones the books were written in, and the languages that Adam felt the whim to teach him (some of which Xander didn't even know the names of, much less whether they were still spoken on Earth), the languages he knew were an odd mix which were rare outside of certain (supernatural) circles and/or no longer used for everyday speech. Some of them were taught at a few universities back home, but others weren't taught formally at all outside of the classes organized by SWCI. Here, where there wouldn't be such a strong tradition keeping them alive, the odds were poor that they were taught at all, or even known of outside of some very small academic circles. So it was lucky that, somehow, Latin was still alive enough in this world that it was taught to high school students. He wouldn't have survived, otherwise.

His other classes weren't of much concern. John wouldn't care what grades he got, and as far as anybody else was concerned, the only thing that should matter was if he passed his classes. He shouldn't have any problem with that, he didn't think. He wouldn't be at the top of the class, because when was he ever? But passing shouldn't be a problem for him. He had plenty of practice learning things he wasn't necessarily enthusiastic about, and later putting them to use: that was pretty much what all of his magic lessons had amounted to, and he'd eventually gotten the knack to it. It wouldn't be too much of a problem to apply those skills to whatever classes he'd gotten thrown into.

It was a surprise to find out that he'd been placed into the advanced classes, where there were advanced classes. He'd been put into AP calculus and AP physics and AP English, all senior-level classes. Those weren't much of a surprise, except for English, a little bit. He'd known that he'd done well on those tests, good enough that he'd admit that he probably already knew enough to teach those classes—well, calculus and physics anyway, he wasn't sure what they taught in English, since they already spoke the language. He knew it was about books and stuff, but he wasn't sure what it was supposed to actually teach. But he was still good enough at English (or at least had done well enough on the test) that it wasn't a surprise that he'd been placed in AP English. What did come as a surprise was that he'd been placed in pre-AP history as well. He'd bombed that test, he knew he had. If he'd gotten any of the questions correct, it had been by accident. And he'd been placed in pre-AP history? At least it was a freshman-level class, not a senior-level one like the rest of his core courses, but still he had to wonder what they were thinking putting him into that class after his terrible grade on that test he'd taken.

Latin was the first level. He could ace that class in his sleep, possibly even in the literal sense as well as the figurative one. But nobody had asked him if he already knew the language, and he'd rather take Latin than fail a class (no matter how little everybody else cared, he didn't like taking a class when he knew that he wouldn't get anything out of it no matter how hard he tried). Alongside those classes, he had physical education and a class on computer science.

Oops, maybe he should have paid a bit more attention when he was getting registered for classes. Computer science did not sound like a class that would be good for him to be in, not in this world without Tesla Compensators. And he refused to break into the school to upgrade all of their computers with Tesla Compensators, because that was the kind of thing he might get caught doing, and that wouldn't reflect well on Harry. He was stuck in the class now, and he'd be stuck in the bracelets one class a day for the entirety of the spring semester. He shuddered at the idea, but he really didn't have a choice. Breaking into the school was always a good way to get Murphy's Law working overtime, and he'd fry the whole room full of computers if he didn't wear the bracelets.

At least there was one bright point, or at least a not-so-horrible one, in his schedule. Physical education hadn't been his favorite class the first time around, but in this softer world, with all the force of his experience behind him, even dodgeball was sure to be enjoyable enough, if they even had dodgeball here. It was hard to imagine people here pelting each other with basketballs. The class was unlikely to be of any actual use for his physical abilities or education, but it was much more along the lines of what he enjoyed than any of the other classes, and he'd be able to move!

He was getting restless just thinking about going to school. Hours cooped up in seats, unable to get up and move around even when you wanted to, having to ask for permission to even go to the restroom...it was like being stuck on a plane for seven hours a day, five days a week. Maybe he wouldn't be in as much pain as he had been on planes before his sudden deaging, but it was still being stuck in one place for hours at a time. Torture, in other words. He hadn't been forced to stay in one place for that long, except for when he was on planes, since...it might have been the last time he'd been in high school. He tried to remember, but he couldn't think of any time after he'd graduated that he'd had to sit in one place like that. Even his meetings with the leaders of various organizations and countries, some of who took life way too seriously and thought that everybody else should too, he hadn't had to sit still. There had been occasional mild glares from the most uptight when he'd gotten up to pace or move around, but nobody had ever said a thing, and the meetings had always continued without a hitch. Of course, outside of meetings there was never any problem with moving about freely, except when he was literally tied up (which didn't happen that often anyway, only a time or two every year, honest!). SWCI was a highly kinetic place. They were all fighters of one kind or another there, full of energy that tended to burst out in motion if it wasn't focused. Even at SWCI, there were times when all of that energy had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Meetings at SWCI tended to be in constant motion: playing with each other's hair and nails, playing with weapons, twirling in chairs and pacing were all common. To an outsider, it would look like chaos, and maybe it was. But it was effective chaos. However distracted the meeting's participants looked, they were all attentively listening to the speaker, ready to debate the course of action as soon as it was time to do so.

School wasn't like that. He remembered it with a feeling of horror that had grown with time. He'd be stuck in one place, often with no choice where he'd be in the classroom, with no opportunity to move around. Any attempt to get his restless energy out some other way would be taken as not paying attention and distracting the other students, and he'd get in trouble. For someone who had spent his entire life highly active (even before he'd started hunting, he and Jesse and Willow had run wild throughout the town, and often that running was literal for one reason or another, even if they hadn't run into anything really serious until Buffy had come to town), even the thought of it was almost enough to make him depressed.

He'd trapped himself into this, he knew. He could have told Harry no. He could have gotten out of it, found some other route to take. But he'd agreed to live with Harry, and to all that that entailed. And now he was stuck, trapped by his own hand with only one bright spot in the entire school day, and not a very bright one at that. Now he was hemmed in with self-imposed obligations and responsibilities, left with no choice but to go on.

It was only four years, with vacations and weekends off. He could survive that, and be free at the end of it. He had to.

***

 

 

Centuries of being surrounded by women had, somehow, made Xander aware of at least the basics of fashion. It had been impossible to avoid, at times. And even if he hadn't managed to learn that little bit, even he could see how eye-watering the bracelets were. It was how they were designed, after all. Nobody in their right mind would wear them as a fashion accessory, and they'd be impossible to miss in the Clean Rooms, to more easily ensure that every person there was properly outfitted to keep from damaging the delicate electronics that were worked with in there.

They served their original purpose well as they were. After a while, it got so that you were used to seeing the eye-searingly bright bracelets on your arms whenever you were in the Clean Rooms, and didn't even have to think about whether you'd remembered them or not—being in a Clean Room without them would be beyond disturbing. But he didn't need the bracelets for the Clean Rooms now. He needed them for going out into public, pretending that there was nothing particularly interesting about the bracelets on his wrists. So he had to redesign the bracelets to be something that wouldn't look out of place when he wore them in public.

The bracelets themselves were deceptively simple looking. Aside from the eye-searing color of the fabric used, they didn't look like anything other than thick cloth bracelets with utility snaps as fastenings. But that was only the outside. Inside, they were another story.

Magic was an omnipresent force. It was impossible to live anywhere that magic did not exist. So the bracelets couldn't cut off the wearer from magic entirely. In truth, that was why the bracelets always came in pairs. One acted as the circle around the wearer, and the other acted as a kind of door through the barrier it formed. It allowed a tiny trickle of magic through into the circle, enough to support life but not enough to ever feel completely normal, even to Blanks. It didn't allow even a single thaum of magic outside of the circle, which was what really created the feeling of wrongness in whoever wore the bracelets.

In the normal course of things, magic was in a constant cycle. Living beings (and certain things which were not living beings of any description, or even undead beings) drew magic from their surroundings, constantly. At the same time, they shed magic to their surroundings. Everybody had a certain pool of magic stored within them, sustaining their life and ready for use if it was needed, but most of the magic in living beings was there only temporarily, constantly changed and refreshed in what could be considered a magic cycle similar to the water cycle. The bracelets disrupted that cycle. The being wearing the bracelets would pull in enough magic to sustain themself, if not to feel completely comfortable (they hadn't yet been able to figure out how to increase the draw limit imposed by the bracelets), but when they shed magic it was trapped and they drew it back into themself. To those who were sensitive to the feel of magic, the magic felt stale, like air that had been recycled too many times. Whether they were sensitive to the feel of magic or not, everybody noticed the feeling of being cut off when they wore the bracelets. With the small amount of magic they could draw from outside the circle, and without shedding and drawing magic naturally, they couldn't feel the minuscule impressions passed on by magic which "recognized" them, having been drawn by them at some point in the past and then shed to be drawn by another, or others. The stale magic didn't have the chance to take those impressions from the surroundings, as it was confined to only one person.

Once the eye-searing fabric had been removed, the bracelets looked much different. They were complex creations of metal etched on every millimeter of their surface with minuscule runes. Although their shape and composition, with tiny wires and knobs and what looked like jewels sticking out precariously, made them look fragile, they were constructed to be the next best thing to indestructible. They were used occasionally for prisoners, with the few humans who had tried to start apocalypses and that SWCI or their allies had actually managed to subdue without killing (they tried, but despite their efforts, all too often they had no choice but to kill rather than allow the world to end). Many of those humans had tried to end the world through magical means—SWCI was not responsible for those who tried to end it through non-magical means—and could not be trusted to wield their magic responsibly in the future. The bracelets had to be able to withstand whatever efforts they made to remove them. There was a method to remove them in an emergency, to destroy them when it was absolutely necessary, but only a few knew it. To everybody else, they were essentially unbreakable.

Xander could leave the bracelets as they were. They were attractive enough, if you didn't know what they were, and nobody here knew what they were. He wouldn't be mistaken for somebody too irresponsible to be trusted with their own magic by wearing them bare in this world. But even if nobody here would know what wearing the bracelets implied, he refused to wear them like that. Even if nobody else knew, he would know. The sentiment against it was so strong that he refused to even consider it. He'd sentenced people to wear those bracelets before, for crimes that deserved much harsher punishments than even the feeling of wearing the bracelets and being unable to use magic. They'd stood down at the last minute, and received their chance to redeem themselves, but that didn't erase their crimes. He refused to join their ranks, even in this one small thing.

Re-covering the bracelets was nearly as simple as exposing them had been. A small scrap of fabric and a sewing needle accomplished most of it. The area of the snaps was a bit trickier, but Xander was accomplished at this task as well as the rest of the tasks he had to do at SWCI. His handiwork here was as neat as it was when he was applying stitches to a wound, and when he was done the bracelets looked as neat and unobtrusive as he could ever wish. Nobody would take notice of the fact that he was wearing *these* bracelets.

***

 

 

The problem with his plan, Xander soon realized, was that it would eventually become very noticeable if he wore the bracelets always and only for his computer science class. People would notice that he put them on right before the class started and removed them immediately afterward, and unlike back home, this would not be seen as a prudent precaution when working with delicate, unprotected electronics, but rather as some very strange tic. Xander didn't care much about what they thought about his behavior--he only bothered to care about that when it was people who were important to him, and not even all the time then. But he didn't want to have even more trouble with his fellow students than he was already anticipating based on past experience. This wasn't SWCI, where everybody would work together regardless of their feelings about each other and their personal dramas. No, this was high school, where every tiny drama was magnified out of proportion and used as an excuse to do everything in the teens' power to make each other's lives miserable.

It wasn't that Xander's life lacked drama at any point. It was just that he'd grown out of the drama commonly practiced in high school, which was all about petty dislike over small details and individuality. What was that compared to the drama in his life, the attempted and successful murders, the life and death struggles, the problems of co-parenting with somebody that you weren't even sure you liked anymore? High school drama might seem of utmost importance to teenagers, but at this point in Xander's life it held very little interest for him. If he could do anything to avoid becoming involved in the most annoying of the drama at the school, he would do it...even if it meant wearing the Bracelets for the entire school day.

Maybe it wasn't quite rational to willingly endure the bracelets for so long for the sake of merely avoiding a little bit of drama (and it would only be a little bit, no matter how much importance the teenagers placed on it; they hadn't learned how to do drama as large as Xander was used to, at their ages), but Xander reserved the right to be irrational when he felt like it. The Bracelets were uncomfortable, and so was drama; he'd just rather endure the Bracelets, as an almost purely physical irritation. He'd withstood torture before. He'd lost his eye and nearly his leg, and those hadn't been the only major injuries he'd ever gotten. The physical irritation was easier for him to endure than the social irritation, with so much practice behind him. Social irritations came and went, but Xander had lived with physical pain every day of nearly his entire life, including some before he'd even started hunting. He'd left behind most of the social irritations after Graduation, and even more after Sunnydale's destruction, when the original Scoobies had stopped living in each other's pockets so much that they didn't have any room to breathe.

***

 

Really, Xander needed to quit trapping himself into doing things he didn't want to do. History showed that it never was as simple as it looked on the surface of things. He agreed to one tiny little obligation, and the next thing he knew he was being forced by his own principles to do all kinds of things that he didn't want to do and that in the end were beyond what he should have been obligated to do. It was how he'd ended up as the head of SWCI. He'd thought that he was safe, when they'd first formed SWCI. He wasn't a Slayer, he wasn't a Watcher, he wasn't a witch. He didn't have anything special about him, other than being willing to fight: there had never been any reason for him to be promoted beyond his position wandering around Africa finding Slayers. But then he'd been the most senior member who knew Africa, the rest of them so green that there hadn't been a choice but to promote him to the head of the Africa branch. And from there, it had just snowballed, and he'd eventually ended up as the head of all of SWCI. He hadn't been able to refuse, as trapped by his principles of following through with his obligations as the rest of the Scooby Council. Nobody had been that highly placed out of desire to be there; they were all obligated to take the positions.

How would this new world snowball his obligations? It was tamer than his own world, but it seemed to be just as effective at forcing him into difficult positions that he had to follow through with. Maybe people here had evolved to not have such a strong sense of obligation as some people had back home, to compensate for not having any real need to fulfill their obligations. He'd have to spend more time observing before he'd know if it was true. Either way, he wouldn't give up on his own obligations. He wasn't built to not do his best, no matter how little his best was actually required, or how much hassle it caused him.

***

 

The first day of school was as miserable as the rest of the winter had been, weather-wise. It was cold enough that patrol wasn't very enjoyable, and random patches of ice made things treacherous, but it had been a long time since Xander had been unused to snow. Cleveland's winters were much the same, and while he hadn't been able to patrol during them in a long time, due not only to his leg but also the various aches and pains from old injuries that hadn't quite healed completely yet and hurt even worse in the cold, he had long been used to them. It had been a long time since he'd seen the first snow in Sunnydale, since he'd wandered around Africa without having to worry about the cold.

Xander was awake without an alarm clock, of course. He'd first started this sleep schedule because it was the only way he could patrol, go to school, and get something like enough sleep. It was only a coincidence that it had worked well with having to work with civilians who kept to "normal business hours", but it had, and he'd had the sleep schedule for long enough that he hadn't had to use an alarm clock in a very long time. He just woke up when it was time to wake up, and it was early enough that he wouldn't have any problem getting to school on time even if he took his time. It was convenient; waking up with an alarm clock never felt as restful as waking up on his own schedule.

He suspected that Soldier had a hand in getting him up in the mornings--he was always the morning person part of Xander's mixed-up psyche. But it was convenient either way, and didn't make anything worse for him, so he didn't bother to check. His inner selves had lives of his own, and he didn't see any need to interfere in them unless they stepped way out of line. None of them had asked for this living situation, so the least he could do was try to keep the peace.

Chicago was already bustling at this hour. It wasn't fully light yet. School had started this early in Sunnydale, but it was lighter there, this early in the day. Here, when it was still dim enough that no smart civilian would have been out and about back in Cleveland, it seemed like everybody was already starting their day, from stores to schools to offices. It was odd to see so many out before it was fully light, before there was protection from the creatures of the night. They didn't have any clue about the danger they were in--they weren't even in much danger here. It was strange to see how much was changed by a few tiny differences between the realities. Even the times that people went to work and school were different.

The El wasn't completely familiar to him yet; he hadn't spent enough time riding it to have a mental map of it, or a corresponding feel for the city for it to make any sense to him. It wasn't like Sunnydale; a large city like this would take more than a few weeks for him to get to know to even a small degree, much less to get him to the point where he knew it like the back of his hand like he knew Cleveland and Sunnydale, even now that the town had been gone for so long.

He was kind of looking forward to getting to know the city. It wasn't something that he had done often, not with the way that his obligations had tended to keep him tied to one location, but he'd done it a few times, with Cleveland and a few cities back in Africa. Sunnydale he couldn't ever remember not knowing like the back of his hand. There had always been a few corners that he hadn't fully explored--the Mayor had made sure that there were always more hidden parts of Sunnydale than they could ever find--but for the most part, it had been as familiar to him before Buffy had come to town as it had been in the end, when Sunnydale had been destroyed.

In a way, he thought that that was where his interest in architecture had started. He'd known all of the buildings in Sunnydale, in many cases down to the smallest details, and somewhere deep in the back of his mind he'd been interested. Buildings in Sunnydale hadn't been exactly like buildings other places, at least not always. You heard about all of these old European castles that had hidden passages and rooms, but Sunnydale had those in almost every building. Sunnydale had sewers that were practically an underground network of streets and even hidden buildings down there, for the more distinctive demons who made Sunnydale their home. Buildings were riddled with hidden blessings and wards, or curses, depending on which building you were talking about. There was nothing boring about architecture in Sunnydale. And he'd learned about it only through wandering around the town, on patrol and otherwise.

Maybe, if he lived the rest of his life here, he'd be able to get to know Chicago as well as he knew Sunnydale and Cleveland. He wouldn't know it that well any time soon. For now his only ambition for knowing the city was to know where he was and how to get to where he was going, and he'd already figured out how to get to his school. The El was easy enough to navigate, at least for this task.

The school looked much the same as Xander remembered from when he'd registered, though they'd changed the sign to welcome students back from the winter break. The students were all directed to the cafeteria, where they waited for the bell to send them to their first class of the day. Xander was alone in the crowd, not knowing anybody there. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in this crowd and not been recognized; he hadn't been in any large crowds since he'd come to this world, and back home it had been a long time since he'd been able to go out in public and not be recognized. Of course, anybody with SWCI or their allies recognized him, but there was also the fame he'd found during the war, commanding the Cleveland Militia while Cleveland was essentially an independent polis under a military dictatorship. His picture had ended up getting splashed all over the warring nation, and he'd become a subject of fascination for reporters who didn't live in Cleveland (the Cleveland reporters knew better). Despite never giving any interviews or interesting comments, they hadn't lost interest in him even after the War was over. He'd kept Cleveland neutral with only a ragtag militia and the support of both the previous government of Cleveland and the government of it while it had been a polis. It hadn't been as interesting as they had made it sound: Xander mostly hadn't done anything other than take symbolic power, other than what he normally did. SWCI had continued patrols of Cleveland and its surroundings. Some of SWCI's members had joined the Militia, along with some civilians, and they had occasionally had to fend off random invasions by splinters of one side of the War or the other, but for the most part there hadn't been anything to do. Neither side's higher ups, who knew that Cleveland was home to the Hellmouth, could see any benefit to having battles and fighting going on there, aside from what was normal for the area. The reporters had made up some story about him having been the sole reason that Cleveland had managed to maintain its neutrality, had kept looking for some sort of back room politics that he'd done to keep the city safe. There hadn't been any, but they were reporters. If they thought that there was a story there, they'd report on it whether there actually was a story there or not. And they'd made him into such a large story that he was taught about in history books and known on sight by any random person on the street, if they were willing to believe their eyes.

It was good to not have that attention on him. Even at SWCI, where they didn't stand on formality and there would never be the reaction to him that there was out in the general public, there was often the feeling of eyes on him when he was in a large gathering of people he wasn't very close to. There was no way to get it to stop: asking people to stop didn't work, and tended to make things even worse. He was no more deserving of that attention than any other person in SWCI, and it was uncomfortable when he was the focus of a crowd for no real reason. Here, he was just another freshman, with nothing particularly interesting about him.

Finally the bell rang, and everybody headed off to their classes. Xander had Latin first thing in the morning, which suited him just fine: a nice easy class to start the day. He hadn't memorized the classroom's location, so he was a bit slow getting to it, but no slower than the others, who had to stop and talk to their friends before going to class.

The Latin teacher, Mrs. F., gave him the textbook and spoke to him for a couple of minutes about his knowledge of Latin. He didn't want to get kicked out of the class for knowing too much, so he downplayed his knowledge but admitted that he did know enough Latin that he wouldn't have a problem joining the class halfway through the year. Then class started with a review of what had been learned the previous semester.

It wasn't anything that Xander didn't know to some degree, but he hoped that he wouldn't need to remember all of the names of the tenses and declensions. He knew how to read, write, and speak it, but he didn't know what all of the different names for parts were. He'd never had to, except a little bit back when he was still using dictionaries and grammar books to figure out what was being said; even back then, he had only remembered the terms long enough to look them up on the declension or conjugation chart and then in the grammar book. It had been a long time since he'd had to do that; these days he just sat down and read it as easily as if it was English. If he had to fill out the names or something on tests, he wouldn't do well at it. But he wouldn't have to worry about that until there was a test; he could handle the rest of it with no problem.

After Latin he had calculus. Xander hadn't really learned math during high school the first time around, and SWCI's classes had taught it to him as it had been relevant rather than as part of some preset schedule and order, so he didn't know what math he knew fell into what category, but he recognized the work they were doing today as being relevant to the construction of the Bracelets, so he was familiar enough with it to have no problem doing the work even if the word problems would have him use it in completely foreign situations. The formulas were the same, and the setup of the word problems was close enough that he didn't have any problem figuring out how they corresponded.

Nobody took much notice of him being a freshman in a senior-level class, but that might have been because they didn't know that he was a freshman. He was shorter than the rest of the class, but that didn't necessarily mean much, and none of them had any idea who he was. He'd see how it worked out once they figured out that he was a freshman. From what he remembered, high school wasn't very nice to the freshmen.

After calculus came history, the class he'd been dreading. Starting in the middle of the year probably wouldn't help him any there, but he wasn't so sure that history was a class where it really mattered if you started in the middle. It was all starting in the middle, wasn't it? Nobody knew what had really happened back in the beginning, not unless they'd been there personally, and not even Adam was old enough to remember back that far. A few demons did, but they weren't in this reality and few of them were historians.

The class was a confusing mess. Xander would never remember who did what, much less when. And there was no relevance to it, as far as Xander could tell. How would the Civil War (the first one, that was, as there had never been a second one in this reality) ever affect his life? But the class itself was pretty low pressure. No relevance meant that if he didn't understand who did what, when, and why, it wouldn't hurt him any. It wouldn't come back to bit him on the ass, when he accidentally said what he thought was a compliment but was actually a historical insult because of obscure reasons. In this world, people who had lived hundreds of years ago were all assumed to be dead. Aside from a few wizards, who probably hadn't made much of an impact on history anyway, they had all died of old age if they hadn't died of other causes.

The teacher was trying, he could tell, and the other students seemed to understand it; if it had been any other class, maybe he would have understood it. But whether it was because he didn't see the relevance, or because he didn't know any of the context of it, he didn't understand what was being taught. Well, it was only the first day of the semester. He had time to figure it out, to ask around and see if he knew anybody who could explain it in any manner that he could understand. He knew a lot of people by now, at least for the amount of time he'd been in this reality; surely somebody he knew would be able to explain things to him. He managed to navigate the intricacies of a supernatural history that involved easily insulted beings of many different species, all with their own ways of being insulted and their own armies ready to invade at the slightest excuse. Mundane history couldn't be too hard if he tried, right? It was just like the history that he knew, minus all of the parts that were at all interesting or what he'd studied before. Piece of cake.

After history came English, another senior level class. The teacher seemed like she might have fit in at SWCI, at least if she'd learned to fight and had been into the fight…which granted were the most important parts, but she had a very SWCI-ish personality. He couldn't see there being any problems with her class. She wasn't likely to take his essays badly, no matter how different they were from what she was expecting—he'd been told a number of times that his mindset was different than most other people's, and since that tended to come out in essays, an uptight teacher might not have been as understanding of his essays as he might wish. But a SWCI-ish teacher would be just fine with them.

Following English came physics. He didn't remember much of what he'd learned in high school physics, but physics played a big role in a number of magical calculations. Granted, those calculations all involved magical force somewhere in them, but the mundane portions of physics were the same, and the principles of it were shared between mundane physics and magical physics; magical physics just had more added into the mix, and concerned itself with more than simple movements. Xander would have no problem with that class either.

Computer science was next. Xander hadn't done much programming, and probably not in any of the languages that were being taught at this point in time (if they even had the same computer languages in this world; it was entirely possible that they had completely different ones), so he'd expected to be behind, and he was. But once you got past having to wear the Bracelets every time you wanted to program on one of these unprotected computers, there wasn't much difference between programming here and back home. Computer languages were often similar in many ways, and even after switching worlds and starting halfway through the year it was easy enough to pick up how the language they were programming with was different from and similar to the languages Xander had experience with.

His final class of the day was physical education. The class didn't have a specific uniform to wear during gym, so Xander had just brought a spare change of clothes to change into. They were supposed to be athletic clothes, but Xander didn't own any clothes that he didn't consider athletic clothes. He'd spent his entire life on the front lines of a war, attacked at random times of the day and night. He was always prepared to be able to fight. Anything else would have been suicide, if he'd done it back home. These days, there wasn't much point in it, he supposed, as he wasn't about to get attacked in this marshmallow world, but old habits die hard, and he'd feel odd in anything that he couldn't fight easily in. His paranoia didn't need any help. It functioned just fine on its own, thank you very much. But his clothes didn't stand out much among the rest. Maybe he didn't wear shorts or pants that were made specifically for athletics, but his shoes were the same tennis shoes that everybody else wore, and his tee shirt didn't look any different than anybody else's.

They played dodgeball, which was honestly a surprise--this world played dodgeball, despite how it was so soft in other ways? But as it turned out, this too was different from back home. Here, they didn't use basketballs, but soft balls that wouldn't do any damage no matter how hard they were thrown (at least by normal humans; Xander knew a few people who could have managed to throw them hard enough to really hurt if they'd felt like it). Here, it seemed like almost everybody enjoyed the game, except for a few of the less athletic ones. And there was no strategy to it, just two teams throwing balls at each other. Was this really what physical education here was like?

Xander made a mental note to try to get close to some of the misfits and nerds in the class. The class didn't look like it was as fun for them as it was to many of the others, probably at least partly because they weren't used to the athletic activity, and partly because they didn't have any friends in the class. That was a shame. Even for people who had lived in this world their entire lives, Xander felt that a class like this should be enjoyed by everybody. If he could do something to somehow make it more enjoyable, or at least less of a torment, for the others then he'd be happy. And the outcasts were the best people to be friends with. They were the interesting ones, the ones who you'd want to know when they were adults. The ones who weren't stuck in the high school patterns of thought and drama, who actually had some individuality and personality to them.

High school was a horrible place to be if you had a personality. Some people made it work for them, managed to take over the social ladder and become queen of the school, but most of the rest were marginalized, with few or no friends, and enemies on all sides. He was surprised that so many of them survived the hostile environment. Here, maybe it wasn't exactly the same: this wasn't home, after all. It seemed like nothing here was as dangerous as back home, so maybe the hazing and bullying wasn't either. But Xander wouldn't risk it, no matter how unlikely the possibility was. This might be a survival situation for some of his classmates, and he knew survival inside and out, the physical and the mental. And he'd teach it to those who most needed it, whether they realized it or not. And he'd give them reasons to care, reasons to make that effort to survive physically and mentally, no matter how hard it seemed at time.

But those were plans for the future, and more long-term than just this one day. Today, once he'd taken his afternoon nap, he had his first day of work for John. That was what he was looking forward to this afternoon. Finally, something to occupy his afternoons with!

When he arrived at his new work that afternoon, John explained that for the moment he was to work out how to ward his properties. He had the blueprints already, ready for Xander to work on, and they'd be helpful, but he preferred to start by visiting the locations personally and getting a feel for them. It wasn't the most scientific of processes, but it was the easiest way to determine if he'd have to do anything special at any of the sites. There were occasionally odd quirks at sites to be warded that resisted certain types of wards, or made them less effective for one reason or another. A blueprint could only tell him so much, and they were rarely complete in Xander's experience, no matter what the intention of them. Maybe Chicago wasn't as bad as Sunnydale, or as bad as Cleveland had been starting to get, but Xander still wasn't willing to take the chance that something might have been missed on the blueprints, accidentally or deliberately.

John had lent him a driver and a car to take him to all of the sites, before he'd changed his mind and assigned the man as Xander's driver for whenever he needed one. Xander, of course, didn't even look like he was old enough to have a driver's license yet, which was irritating, but not having to drive himself wasn't anything he objected to. For most of his life, driving had been made difficult by not having a left eye. He'd never been unable to drive, but it had taken him more effort to check his left side than it took people who had two functional eyes. Now, that wasn't a problem for him, but his feelings toward driving hadn't changed. He liked the freedom of being able to drive himself, but he didn't want to actually take advantage of it unless he was forced to.

Fortunately, he got along well with his driver, once the man had gotten over his age and thawed a bit towards him. It hadn't taken the whole evening, even, only a few hours. That was fortunate; it could have been pretty lonely being driven everywhere by somebody who he couldn't talk easily with. He'd have to come back to the sites several times even before the actual warding started, after all, and head out to them every day after he got started on the warding proper. The driver would be his companion the whole time; better that they be on a friendly basis than a merely business one.

As it turned out, none of the sites had any odd quirks that would require an alteration to his standard plans. That made things easy.

***

It took him a few days of steady work after he'd visited all of the sites to work up the preliminary plans for the wards. Although he was sure that it would be a bad idea to put up strong wards at the sites, as that would make them stand out and become targets, especially with there being so little ambient magic in this reality, he provided that as one of the options for John to choose from. He'd advise him not to choose it, but it only seemed right to provide it as an option rather than being half-assed and only creating plans for lighter wards that wouldn't be as noticeable.

When he had all of the plans worked out, Xander took them into John's office. "I have the preliminary plans worked out," he said. "If you have the time to select which ones you'd like."

"Select which ones I'd like?" John asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's the strong wards," Xander said, laying out the plans for them. "Which can probably stand up to most of what this world has to offer. But they're extremely visible, on a mystical level. People may or may not know that they're wards on your buildings, but they'll definitely know that there are wards, and powerful ones at that. If there's anything in this reality that goes around just looking for a fight, they're going to go for those wards, because they're going to think that whatever's behind those wards is strong enough to be worth attacking. They're modified versions of the wards that we had on the Bunker, back home. We expected to be attacked no matter what we did, so we put up those wards to take out as many of the attackers as possible. But you're not likely to be attacked if you don't make a target of yourself, here, so I recommend against them."

John inspected the plans, probably not understanding much of it; they were admittedly rather technical, and probably only a couple sections of them were comprehensible to laymen. "And the other plans?" he asked, reserving judgement until he'd seen all of them.

"These are about the lightest wards you could have up and do any good," Xander said, laying down a second set. "Not much good, but they'd give you a bit of a warning when you needed it. They'd have the advantage of being almost undetectable. People who are sensitive to magic would know that there was some sort of magic around, but they probably wouldn't be able to tell even that they're wards."

"Also recommended against?" John asked.

Xander shrugged. "Not entirely. They're very subtle wards, so if you want to be pretty much completely inconspicuous, that's the wards I'd recommend. Nobody's going to get much information out of them."

"Is that all?"

"Nope. I can do anything in between. But the ones I personally recommend, assuming you're not going all out and not too concerned with being completely subtle, are these." He set the third and last set of plans down on John's desk. "They don't have all the bells and whistles, and they're not going to be completely invisible--people are going to know that your buildings are warded if they walk past and have the background to know--but they're a good balance. They're not going to stand out too much, and certainly no more than other wards you can find in this city. I could have managed more back home before it got conspicuous, so they're a little bit underpowered by my standards, but you have less ambient magic here and fewer practitioners of any power, much less powerful ones, so it would probably be a bit conspicuous if I made anything much more powerful than these."

John asked about the differences in aspects other than power levels, and Xander laid it out to him as well as he could to a layman. Some of the differences were kind of technical, and Xander was pretty sure that John didn't understand what they really were aside from aspects that Xander liked or disliked, but Xander had had to explain things to people with no background in magical theory often enough that he could manage to make it understandable for the most part.

Eventually John was satisfied and had no more questions. "I believe that these would be the most appropriate wards," he said, indicating the mid-range plans. "Will you need anything particular for creating these wards?"

"Yes," Xander said. "Nothing too special, I don't think, unless that's one of the changes. I'll get a preliminary list to you as soon as possible, things I know I'll need, and once I've come up with the final designs I'll give you a revised list if anything's different. Sometimes you don't really know what you'll need until you actually start work, though, so there might be a couple more items once I start. But it shouldn't be anything big, really."

"Ah, good," John said. "One more thing. The effects of magic on electricity, is that something to be concerned about with these wards?"

"Oh!" Xander exclaimed. "I kind of forgot about that."

"Xander, you use magic as much as Mr. Dresden does. How could you forget about it?" John asked.

Xander shrugged. "Your world's so weird. You haven't even fixed that. In my world, we started compensating for it back at the beginning of the twentieth century, when Tesla came up with the Tesla Compensator. These days, nothing back home comes without at least a low-quality Compensator. And here, you have nothing. No Tesla Compensators at all, as far as I can see."

"So that will be a problem with the wards? Perhaps we should use the lighter wards after all."

Xander snorted. "Over something like that? It'll be a bit of extra work for me, and maybe some assistants, and I won't be able to start warding the sites until after everything at them gets fixed up, but making Tesla Compensators isn't really a big issue, just an annoyance."

"You know how to make them?" John asked alertly.

"Of course," Xander said. "When you spend as much time in high-magic environments like I do, the Tesla Compensators that come standard are really not good enough to keep your devices from frying. Everybody in the business, and more than a few outside of it, knows how to make heavy duty Tesla Compensators."

"If you could install those where they're needed in my properties, it would be appreciated," John said.

"Sure, no problem," Xander said. "Oh, and you might want to send out a memo to your employees about whatever devices they bring onto your properties, so they're prepared. And I can write down the instructions for making your own Tesla Compensator, so anybody who doesn't want to have to worry about random magic can fix up their devices themselves."

"Thank you, I'm sure it will be much appreciated."

***

 

Xander's campaign of friendship was going well. He'd spent a good deal of time around teenagers of one description or another, as they were generally more eager to contribute their efforts to SWCI's cause than adults who would have to fit their participation into their lives around or instead of their jobs. Teenagers might spend a lot of their time in school, but they weren't there voluntarily and they didn't generally see much benefit in it, anyway. Plus, there was the psychological angle: teenagers in general found it easier to adapt to the existence of the supernatural and fighting against it. Most of SWCI's new recruits were teenagers, and he'd become adept at dealing with them over the years (he could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered adept at dealing with them when he had been a teenager the first time around himself).

He wasn't willing to put in the effort to become the most popular person in the school, nor was he interested in gathering followers indiscriminately. No, what he was doing was essentially cherry-picking the teens who were rejected by the others; not because of their position in the school's social hierarchy, but because he could see some inner quality that teenagers (and many adults) were too young to see in them. They were the rejects, yes, but that wasn't why he wanted them.

This wasn't home. There was no ultimate purpose for these teenagers, no battle for them to fight. The only result he expected was for their lives to be a little bit better, a little bit enriched by being drawn together with all of the others and Xander. Already, there were tentative alliances and friendships springing up between people who had known each other for years, had attended the same classes their whole lives and had never spoken to each other on any significant subject. He didn't know any of them well, not yet, but he was getting to know them and they were getting to know him and each other. It was too early yet, but he thought that soon he'd start meeting them outside of school, introducing them to things and places he thought they'd be interested in, that they'd never find on their own.

Maybe it was odd to consider people to be your hobby, but Xander didn't care. He was a social kind of person. SWCI had practically run on gossip, both the confirmed kind that was run in SWCI's newspapers and the unconfirmed kind that passed by word of mouth, that nobody took too seriously but was just for fun. And SWCI had been deliberately engineered to be the strongest support network they could make it. It had been an extrovert's heaven, and already Xander missed it. Here, at least at school, there was little to appease his need to communicate with others. Sit in his seat and keep his mouth shut, that was what he was supposed to do at school. Even SWCI's libraries had been social places, where people gossiped while they worked, where they cheered on the sparring matches in the gym that was separated from the library by only a wire barrier intended only to keep any wild throws from destroying any books. It was the optimal environment, as far as Xander was concerned: anybody who needed help could easily seek it out, and if any results were found they could be shared immediately. The library crew wasn't always the most on-task, but they didn't have to be. They could be as distracted as they wanted, as long as they got the work done, and if there was one thing people at SWCI were good at it was multi-tasking.

Maybe he'd arrange for his teens to study together. Goddess knew he could use the help in history, and he was betting that he wasn't the only one who needed help in his classes. Nobody was good at everything, but his crew could combine their efforts and each make a good approximation of it. From what some of them had said, some of the teachers that Xander didn't have weren't the best teachers in the world, or at least their teaching style didn't work for everybody. Some people could learn with any teacher, or already knew the material that was giving the others problems. They could help each other.

Xander didn't care about academic success. Not for himself, anyway. And if all the others wanted was to pass and they managed to do that, he was happy for them.

But others cared about how well they were doing, or needed to care in order to be in the best position possible for when they were applying to colleges or for scholarships. He'd do all that was in his power to help them earn those grades and those test scores.

Others of his teens had interests other than school. Some of them also cared about school, but others cared only about their extracurriculars, whatever they were. He had a budding artist and a writer in the group; he hadn't been able to ferret out any other hobbies from the group, but he knew he'd find them out eventually. None of his kids were the type to just sit around and stare at the walls for hours; they all had interests, whatever they might be, and he'd find some way to further those interests.

Sometimes it had been hard back home, with so many teenagers in SWCI, because so many of them seemed to think that being involved in the fight was the only thing they could do with their lives, that they had to give up on anything outside of the fight when they took it up. And while that might be true to a great degree at the highest levels, for those who were the head of SWCI or, to a slightly lesser degree, on the Scooby Council, due simply to a lack of time, it was completely untrue for any of the kids. Even in SWCI, being an average fighter or researcher, anybody who had no elevation in rank--which was most of those who were involved in SWCI, and almost all of the kids in their teens and twenties--had no reason that they couldn't pursue their lives in as normal a fashion as possible outside of SWCI. SWCI had a long-standing tradition of encouraging its members to pursue normal lives outside of their work with SWCI, in whatever manner they could manage. They encouraged attending proms and dating and school-sponsored activities. They encouraged business ownership and marriage and babies. And most of all, they encouraged every single person to do what made them happy. For some, that meant staying with SWCI and dedicating their lives to it. For others, that meant being less active at SWCI, reducing their hours or days or only coming in for the occasional apocalypse, and devoting the bulk of their lives to something other than the fight. For yet others, happiness meant leaving SWCI entirely, going to one of the other supernatural organizations or even burying their heads in the sand and pretending the supernatural didn't exist.

Most of that wasn't relevant here; after all, there was no SWCI, and there wasn't enough supernatural in this world to bother telling them about it. But the part about the happiness? That was always relevant. It was also always the most challenging part of anything. Every person had a different idea of happiness, constantly changing with their circumstances. It took a great deal of care to be able to figure out what would make a person happy when they didn't even know what it was themself.

***

 

 

It took a few weeks before Xander could get to work on the warding like he had planned to. He had never considered just how much technology was lying around in John's properties, since he'd never had to do a large-scale Tesla Compensator installation project like this in the past. Everything from parts integral to the building, from the wiring and lights to heating and cooling, to phones and computers and personal technology that the employees tended to take to work with them, all had to be upgraded.

John lent him a what amounted to a small army to assist him with the upgrades, with the idea that once he'd taught them how to perform the upgrades they'd be able to carry them out in the future without any input from him, and hopefully there wouldn't be any unfortunate incidences of technology destruction due to people not being willing to disturb him and ask him to fix their technology. Personally, Xander thought it might work. Some of the men and women seemed a little bit skeptical about the existence of magic, much less its ability to destroy technology, but others looked like they not only believed, but like they had had unpleasant encounters with magic in the past.

After Xander was done with the warding project, maybe he'd ask John if he could maybe teach those men a bit more about keeping themselves safe around magic and the supernatural, without any special powers of their own. Since John was confident enough about his involvement in the supernatural to hire Xander for magical security, it might be worth it to teach these men what they were willing to learn. Of course, Xander was willing either way--he had no problem sharing his knowledge, whether the person he was sharing it had any use for it or not--but in this case, it might be of some use to them.

He'd started a campaign to learn everything he possibly could about the beings who called this reality their home. For now, that mostly meant prying stories out of Bob and Harry. Later, once he could find a way to get his hands on more than he could find in Harry's apartment, Xander would hit the books and see what they had to say. Harry and Bob were great, but Harry was still young and didn't know much, and neither of them could go through everything common in this reality in a systematic method, only as they thought of beings. There were sure to be beings that they were forgetting, or that they weren't familiar enough with to say much about, and Xander didn't want to have any more gaps in his education than he was forced to have.

Okay, so maybe that was his paranoia speaking. He knew that this world wasn't as deadly as his own, really he did. If he skipped over a few beings in his knowledge here, it was extremely unlikely to kill him. He knew it was paranoia to think that he had to be familiar with everything here. But paranoia had kept him alive for the rest of his life, so it wasn't a habit that he was about to break.

The warding here was probably close to overkill for this reality, another product of his paranoia. But he was John's chief of magical security (for all that he was the only member of the department), and that was a position where he was supposed to have a good deal of professional paranoia. So he did his best, not cutting any corners even when they probably wouldn't cause any problems if they were cut.

As usual, the kind of warding he did was fiddly and precise and slow. Sure, he could slap up a basic set of wards in about half an hour, but they'd be sloppy and far less effective than they should be for the amount of power poured into them, only useful if there was no time to make something better. The better the wards, the more precise you had to be, the more time and effort you had to put into them. It took him weeks of 8-hour workdays, doing nothing but putting up the wards from the moment he arrived to the moment he left with a tension headache that left him almost blinded by the pain, to get even one site's wards up completely. John had considerably more than one property; he anticipated this project taking at least one year before it was completed. He'd warned John about this, that if he wanted a bodyguard who could do magic before he was done, he'd better find somebody else or else expect the project to take even longer.

John had chosen to find another bodyguard for the time being, which was probably a good idea anyway considering that there would probably be events that Xander wouldn't be able to attend in the future, due to Harry's attendance; it was better to find another bodyguard now than to have to worry about it later or to go without at those events. John chose Monoc Securities to provide the bodyguard; from what he knew, they were the best of the choices available. Xander didn't know enough about this world's organization to say one way or another, at least without judging the bodyguard's competence himself. John was knowledgeable enough in this instance for Xander to trust his judgement for now. He really didn't have enough time to give the new bodyguard a thorough inspection, or do more than meet her in passing.

He probably should make the time. She was John's security, after all, and technically his subordinate. He should get to know the people under him. But he'd seen enough to know that she was better than Harry, which was probably the best he could hope for in this world.

And any time that he spent getting to know her would come out of the ward project. Five minutes here and there might not seem like much, but they added up, and nobody wanted this project to take any longer than it had to.

He'd talked wards with Harry a little bit more, and ended up sketching out a few improvements to Harry's wards. He couldn't fix them up himself now; he was barely able to see straight after all the warding he was doing every day, much less do even more magic. But he could give a few pointers to Harry. Nothing too complex, because Harry didn't have the experience to understand it yet, and Xander couldn't spare the brainpower to figure out the more complex bits. But there were some relatively simple things he could do to improve his wards, that wouldn't require too much help from Xander: the first one was changing his ward-path. He'd used the same one since he was a kid, which was just bad practice. It was like passwords: you had to change them every once in a while, or you were in even more danger of getting hacked than you already were.

Maybe it wouldn't make any difference. With so little magic in this world, there might not even be ward-hackers, and Harry certainly didn't seem to have anything worth stealing. But just because there weren't many threats didn't mean you should just ignore best practices.

***

 

 

Xander wasn't a huge fan of Harry's girlfriend Susan. There was nothing really wrong with her, especially when he thought back and objectively compared her to his own girlfriends and boyfriends. She wasn't the type to try to kill Harry or anybody else, at least, and her personality was nice enough. It was just that she was a reporter, and not SWCI's version of a reporter, or even the general Cleveland variety who had all learned when to keep their curiosity to themselves. No, Susan was the other kind of reporter, the kind who were dedicated to the story and would pull stupid stunts with a good chance of getting them killed if they thought it was the only way for them to get the story.

Maybe that was another thing that he didn't have to worry about in this world. There were plenty of stupid stunts Susan could pull that could get her killed, even here, but most of them didn't involve the supernatural, even if she did work for a newspaper that reported on the supernatural, so it really wasn't Xander's job to keep her safe.

He thought about warning Harry--he'd seen a few reporters just like her get killed because they took stupid risks--but he thought that Harry probably already knew about her more negative tendencies, as he'd known her for longer than Xander had. And if he didn't, if he was willfully blind to that, well, trying to warn people about the people they were dating was usually a pointless exercise. If they didn't want to hear it, they'd ignore the advice, convince themselves that you just wanted to sabotage their relationship for whatever reason. All that was usually accomplished by warning people about their significant other was destroying your own relationship with your friend.

Worse, Susan was the type who, when you warned them about a very real danger that you had the experience to know they didn't have the ability to take on, would assume that you were trying to take away their independence and keep them from doing something that they really could handle. It was impossible to convince them otherwise, and they'd sneak around your back and do it anyway if you warned them. Xander couldn't help feeling that Harry was going to end up hurt badly by her, in the end.

***

 

Xander didn't have much spare time for now. The warding project kept him going for long hours every evening, and the headache he had afterwards prevented him from doing anything more strenuous than going back to the apartment and lying down, sleeping on the occasions he was able to. School occupied his daytime hours, and he squeezed his homework in when he could, the same as he had the first time he was in high school. He didn't have time for much else during the week.

Weekends were more open. He still worked on the wards in the evenings, with a different driver as his weekday driver had the weekends off, but his days were free for him to use however he liked. He'd started using those days as his usual days to go to the dojo, and most of his usual crowd had picked up on it and came in then. Gradually he convinced more people to join him then: members of his school group, mostly, and a few people from work and who he'd met randomly. Most of them weren't very good, just beginners at this point, and the regulars who had been learning from him for a while had given them odd looks when they had first shown up; they'd thought that it was a class for advanced students only. But eventually those looks dropped off as they saw that he could manage the class as it was, with all ability levels mixed together.

The beginners got better faster than they would have if it was just them, with the advanced students easily able to correct their technique one-on-one when they were paired up for sparring, and the advanced students were reminded that once you got to a certain level you started to expect your sparring partners to have a certain level of skill, and sometimes that hurt you when you found yourself facing an opponent who wouldn't respond as a skilled opponent would.

He was surprised at some of the kids he'd managed to talk into attending the lessons. There was a certain type of person you expected to willingly go to lessons like these, and there was a certain type of person you expected to avoid them like the plague. All of them could be convinced, eventually, with creative enough arguments, but Xander hadn't even had to try those arguments. His budding writer had decided to join the lessons because she said she had characters who knew how to fight, and it would help her if she knew what it was like to fight, personally rather than second-hand. Another, who looked like a stiff wind would knock her over and who rarely spoke up, hadn't given a reason but had simply started coming, a determined expression on her face as she tried her hardest to perfect the motions.

She was getting extra tutoring from one or two of the more advanced students, outside of the class. He could see her improving faster than she would with just his class, and some of the advanced students seemed to be more familiar with her, after the first few times she attended, than they were with the other kids, even though they'd been paired up just as often during class. Xander made a point of complimenting her progress and how much she was practicing outside of class. She was like Tara had been, and she deserved to get the skill to make her confident in herself and her ability to defend herself from whatever she needed defense from.

This class would never learn as quickly as his SWCI classes had. At SWCI, everybody had been learning to fight for their lives in a war that they were already in the middle of. In comparison, for most of his students here this was just theoretical, preparation for something that might not ever happen. He could understand that, and he didn't expect the same results. But for who they were, they were learning quickly, and he was proud of them.

He'd been worried about finding something to occupy his time, but for the next year his time was spoken for, almost completely. He wouldn't have to worry about finding another hobby, or even keeping up the ones he'd already decided upon--he didn't have time to do either, even if he had wanted another hobby.

His kids were starting to really get close to each other. It had been a bit iffy in the beginning--people would only become friends if they wanted to, and to start with none of them had been all that enthusiastic about the idea. But they had eventually gotten to know each other a bit better, and from there it was no problem getting them to be friends. Sure, they were still an oddball mix, with few of them having the same interests, but they overlapped well, with almost any two of them having one major thing in common. And the diversity of the group ensured that there was no stagnation. They were constantly introduced to new ideas and interests by their fellows, which just added to the interestingness of the group.

Xander himself couldn't attend many of them, but the others found a number of events and places to visit each week. Few, if any, were of interest to the entire group, but the group was large enough and the activities varied enough that most of them found at least one thing to do with other members of the group at least once a week. Xander's kids were proceeding right on schedule.

***

 

 

Harry, unlike the rest of Xander's life, was a mess. Not that that was Xander's fault--well, at least not most of it. Harry was a mess on his own. He still hadn't said much about his past--and Xander still thought that that would come back to bite him, and Xander because their lives were so closely tied together now, on the ass--but he'd said enough for Xander to know that, whatever had happened, it had royally fucked up Harry.

For all that Harry was a member of the White Council, he didn't seem to like it much--understandable, no matter what, Xander thought, but that might just be his own prejudices showing through--and what's more, he seemed to be afraid of the Council or at least the Wardens. It was enough to make Xander wonder if that rumor about Harry's past hadn't been true after all, if he hadn't either been accused of or actually guilty of breaking one of the Laws. It didn't seem likely, with the death penalty for any violation of the Laws and the rumored zealousness of the Wardens in executing the punishment. If Harry had broken one of the Laws, and people had known about it, he wouldn't be here today unless something exceedingly odd had happened. It seemed like something that was too sensitive to talk about this early in their relationship, though, so Xander didn't ask about it.

But whether because of Harry's antagonism towards the White Council, or those teachers of his who hadn't done a very good job by Xander's standards (by this world's standards, who knew?), Harry didn't know Latin. Not enough to really use it, anyway. And as it turned out, the official language of the White Council was Latin. Forget the usefulness of being able to read a language that was used for a very long time to write the kind of books Harry needed to read to further his magical skills. The official language of the White Council was Latin. Sure, Harry might be planning to have as little as he possibly could to do with the White Council, but that didn't mean he'd always be successful, and if he ever had to speak in front of the White Council, for whatever reason, he'd be crippling himself to not know it as well as he possibly could.

"I took a mail order course," Harry said defensively when Xander brought it up.

"A . . . mail order course," Xander said. There were just no words for that. Hadn't his previous magic teachers been part of the White Council? The second one had been, Xander knew, but he wasn't sure about the first since Harry didn't talk about him. He should have been taught. There was no way that his teachers had missed his magical strength, and since in this world membership in the White Council was on solely the basis of magical strength, they couldn't have thought that he would have no need for it. "You do realize how unhelpful that's probably going to be if you ever have to actually use it, right? You're not deluding yourself into thinking that you're actually fluent?"

"When am I ever going to have to use it?"

"You might not plan to go up in front of the White Council, but you never know what's going to happen in the future."

"That's not going to happen. I follow the Laws, I don't go to the meetings. They don't have any reason to force me to go, so why would I need to talk to the Council?"

"I don't know," Xander said. "But what's it going to hurt for you to become fluent? If you never have a use for it, well, good for you. But knowledge is never wasted, and this seems even less likely to be wasted than most other knowledge."

"Fine," Harry said grumpily, an odd expression on his face. "When do we start?"

*"Now,"* Xander said.

"What?" Harry said, his eyes wide. "But I thought there'd be books and stuff, not...talking."

*"How are books going to teach you how to speak Latin?"* Xander asked. *"Yeah, they're the same language, but you need to know how to understand what's said and how to say what you want to say."*

Harry was clearly concentrating hard, and getting at least the general gist of what Xander was saying. It was a start, at least, even if it was nowhere close to the level that Xander wanted Harry to be at. He was speaking slower than he usually would, to accommodate Harry's inexperience, and he was still having trouble understanding what he was saying, and he hadn't even made an attempt to speak in Latin yet. They had a long way to go, but hopefully they'd have time before Harry had to use it for real, not just with Xander.

Harry sighed. "Fine, let's do this."

Xander grinned. *"Bob!"* he called.

"Yeah, Xander?"

*"We're speaking Latin until further notice or in emergencies."*

*"You got it!"*

***

 

 

Snake was uncharacteristically quiet when he arrived at the prison. Not that he had anything to worry about; he'd been in the joint before, and anyone who had been there when he'd been there before, or had heard of him from others, knew not to mess with him. But Xander had given him a lot to think about.

He didn't think that Xander had meant to do anything of the sort. He'd spoken as if he wasn't saying anything particularly surprising, as if he hadn't thought that Snake would be at all affected by what he'd said. But how could he have not been affected? Xander had confirmed the existence of angels and demons and pagan gods. He hadn't known about God, if He really existed, but if all of that other stuff existed, didn't it make sense for God to be real too? If there was a heaven and a hell and angels and demons, there had to be a God out there somewhere. And even if there wasn't, there was still a heaven and a hell. Even if there was no God, he'd still be punished for the things he'd done in his life.

But along with that news, Xander had given him hope. There was no such thing as too late for redemption, he said. There was still hope for Snake, if he turned his life around. It would be hard, but he could do it. And if he didn't, if he ignored this opportunity when it was practically a sign from Above that he should change his life, what would the consequences be? Xander thought that he would still have the chance to redeem himself, any time he felt like it. But was that true? Xander had admitted that he didn't have all the answers, that he hadn't even known for sure if people were redeemed in the end if they made the effort. Maybe this was it, his last chance to redeem himself before he was lost forever, before he stepped off of some fucking cliff of evilness and lost his chance to redeem himself. Could he take that chance?

Snake had never been too interested in religion. It had never seemed too relevant to his life. But he could understand what Xander had said. It wasn't Xander's form of religion, he'd said that, but it was religion of some sort, and it made sense to Snake. Could he live his life like that? With the knowledge that somethings couldn't be made up for, only balanced out? He'd done some bad things in his time, worse than Xander knew--things that couldn't be made up for. Back when he'd been a kid, the priests had made it sound like all you had to do to make up for any bad thing you did was to apologize, to God and maybe to the person you hurt, and that was it: your evilness was wiped clean, like it hadn't ever existed at all. Even back then, that hadn't made much sense to Snake. There were so many things he'd done that couldn't be made up for, not really. You could pay somebody back if you stole from them, but there were other things that you couldn't ever give back, no matter how much you wanted to later on. And those crimes couldn't be erased by a fucking apology, no matter how much you meant it.

Xander thought that those crimes could be balanced out, like some sort of math equation. You do some sort of horrible thing, you can balance it out with good deeds, if you were doing them for the right reason. The horrible things you do are still there, but they're balanced out by the good things you do. That seemed more right than being able to erase your evil deeds, but it still left open the possibility of not having to suffer eternally for things you did wrong before you learned better.

Maybe Xander wasn't the only person in the world who thought this way. Snake didn't usually pay much attention when religious people were talking, because those priests when he was a kid hadn't known anything, and even as a kid he'd known that. He'd assumed that all of them were the same. But maybe they weren't. Maybe giving them a chance was part of this redemption thing.

Xander was willing to give anybody a chance. He gave Snake a chance, assumed the best of him even when anybody could see that he wasn't the best person in the world, and that he definitely didn't have the best intentions. He gave that other guy a chance, who'd killed all those people way back when. A thousand years of it--and Xander had known about it and still given him a chance. Snake hadn't been willing to give everybody a chance, not even the people who he knew were only trying to help. Maybe he should give them a chance. He wouldn't--he couldn't--be like Xander, trusting everybody no matter who they were or what they had done, but he could give a few people the benefit of the doubt, at least a little bit. He'd tried not trusting anybody, and what good had that done him? It hadn't kept him and the guys safe. They were dead, killed by the Russians, and he was here, back in prison.

If this wasn't a sign, he didn't know what was. He wasn't important enough for God, if he existed, to do the bleeding statue routine or whatever. If he wanted a sign, he'd have to be satisfied with one that wasn't as crazy as a burning bush. And everything in his life had come together at this point: he'd lost his friends and his business. He'd died on the operating room table, and they'd managed to bring him back to life. And Xander knew all this stuff about heaven and hell. All at the same time. Either it was a sign, or he was desperate enough to accept it as one. As far as he could see, it didn't matter which it was. Either way, he knew what he was going to do.

Snake had never turned over a new leaf before. When he was a kid, everybody had thought he was going to grow up to be a criminal, and he hadn't ever done anything other than live up to that expectation. He'd never regretted it much before. He'd known exactly who he was, who his friends were, who his enemies were. There had never been an ounce of doubt in his mind, about anything.

Now, it seemed like there was nothing in his life *but* doubt. He didn't know what he was doing. Be a better person than he had been, or at least do things to balance out all the bad things he'd done in his life? He didn't have a fucking clue what to do, or even where to start. He supposed that he should stop being a criminal, which was an easy decision considering that the whole gang was dead other than him, but what was he supposed to do instead? He'd need to get a job when he got out, he guessed, but he'd never had an honest job in his life. He didn't know where to start.

***

 

 

As it turned out, Harry had friends other than Karrin. And once Harry and Xander had settled into their new life, Harry decided to introduce Xander to them.

The Alphas were cool; nerds who were slowly transforming themselves into badasses. They weren't quite there yet, but Xander had been through that process before even if he'd never quite arrived, and he'd seen any number of people go through the same transformation at SWCI (along with the ones who started out as badasses and slowly transformed themselves into nerds--eventually, everybody who stayed associated with SWCI became a nerd whether they planned to or not), and they were clearly in the middle of it.

Apparently, they were one of the types of werewolf found in this world. Xander ended up asking them a lot of nosy questions about it because, hey, that was what he did when he didn't have a lot of information and he had a friendly victim who wouldn't take much offense for his interrogation. Sure, the Alphas were friendly, but there was never any guarantee that any others who could manage the same trick would be friendly as well.

Their transformation wasn't mental at all. Xander had heard about it from Harry, but it was another thing to get the chance to talk to somebody who had mastered a complete bodily transformation without any mental effects at all. That kind of thing generally didn't end up going very well at all, in Xander's experience, with many of the practitioners who had tried it ending up with an animal's mind, unable to transform themselves back. But for the Alphas, all of their wolfish behavior was learned.

They were better at it than Xander would have expected, for the short period of time they had been doing it. Oh, he wasn't surprised at their ease in turning into wolves and back into humans, but they were better at acting like wolves and using their new(-ish) bodies and senses than Xander would have expected. Apparently they'd had a very good teacher. Eventually he managed to pry it out of them that their teacher had actually been a wolfwere--maybe that wasn't the right term for it, but they'd never had any wolf that could turn into a human in his reality, not that he'd ever heard of, and neither the Alphas nor Harry seemed to have a word for what she was, either.

One of these days, when he wasn't constantly exhausted and in pain from the warding he'd been doing--so, after the warding project was done--and after the Alphas had accepted him as more than the fourteen year old he appeared to be, he'd have to get them to tell him how they did the spell. For whatever reason, no significant numbers of people had figured out a similar trick in his world. He didn't know if he'd ever want to use it, much less enough for it to be of much use to him when he used it, but at least if he knew how to do it he'd have that as an option. Even if Hyena would prefer that he figure out how to alter it to a hyena's form instead. She'd take whatever he would let her have, and wouldn't seriously complain even if he did turn into a wolf instead of a hyena.

Harry's other good friend...Xander didn't like him as much.

It wasn't Michael's fault, not really. Xander was sure he was a nice guy. But Xander had spent almost his entire life on one Hellmouth or another. He'd been born literally on top of the Sunnydale Hellmouth, in the hospital that had been there before they'd torn it down to build the high school. He'd spent his high school career only a few feet away from it for hours every day. He'd been there when it had opened and when they'd finally closed it for good. The Africa Headquarters had been located on top of a miniature Hellmouth. And finally, he'd moved to Cleveland, and the Hellmouth there. He'd spent his entire life soaking infernal energy in literally every second. Most of the magic he had practiced had drawn on that energy, as the most plentiful source of magic around him that wouldn't cause problems if he drew it (pro tip: drawing energy from enchanted objects is generally more trouble than it's worth, and has a tendency to go catastrophically wrong). It was in every cell of his body. It might actually kill him to try to remove it completely. And infernal energy tended to react badly to holy energy.

It wasn't really Michael's fault. Yeah, it was his fault that he was radiating holy energy, but there probably wasn't anything he could do about it, even aside from the question of if he'd want to. Most people would like the holy energy that he exuded, even not knowing what it was. It would feel calming or soothing or whatever to them. To Xander, it felt itchy.

It was literally an allergy to holy energy. He wasn't a Demon or vampire or anything, to have real problems with the man's Holiness--his allergy would never be fatal, not unless he used magic more tainted than just the Hellmouth's radiation. But he itched now, and he could practically feel the hives rising on his skin. He'd endured worse--one of the times he'd been tortured, he thought--but it took all of his self-control to keep from scratching his arms until they were bloody because of the Holiness. And it was a bit hard to like a guy when you were literally allergic to him.

There weren't many really religious people who would settle on a Hellmouth. They weren't allergic to the infernal energy like Xander was allergic to their holy energy, but Hellmouths always felt wrong to them more than to others. None of the ones Xander had met before held a candle to Michael, Holiness-wise; he must be something special.

On the Hellmouth, they were easy to avoid. While there weren't many people who were as sensitive to their Holy energy as Xander was, as few people had had as much exposure to the Hellmouths as he had had, word got around about where they lived. Their neighborhoods were the safest ones in the city, even though nobody wanted to patrol them, because most demons had at least a mild allergy to them as well. They tended to live strangely charmed lives, no matter how many risks they took and how lightly they were Blessed. The supernatural just avoided them like they had a bubble of protection around them. To some extent, they did, of course. But most of it was simple free will: the supernatural wanted nothing to do with them. Some of them were avoided so thoroughly by anything supernatural that they didn't have even a glimmer of a hint that it existed.

Xander had only rarely had to encounter a Holy person back home. Here, he didn't think it would be possible to avoid Michael. He was Harry's friend, and he was no more able to turn off the Holiness than Xander was able to purge the infernal energy from his system. It was too much a part of each of them. And admitting you were allergic to Holy energy seemed like something that would lead to awkward questions, so Xander just wouldn't mention it. He could handle it. It would be uncomfortable, but so were a lot of things he'd done in his life, and he hadn't died of any of them yet. He might not be able to avoid Michael entirely, but he wouldn't be seeing him more often than short spans of time, spread out. It wasn't like he'd have to live with the man.

The only thing he really had against the man was the fact that he was a father. Okay, *maybe* that one was a bit irrational. Not that the man wasn't a father, because he was, several times over, but there was something about fathers that Xander just didn't trust. He hadn't seen one single example of a good parent (at least one who was actually related to their child) in real life before Joyce--and even Joyce had locked her daughter up in an insane asylum for talking about vampires like they were real. But Joyce had been, for the most part, the best mother Xander could imagine. She'd changed his opinion about mothers, or at least opened him up to the possibility that some of them were good mothers. But he'd never seen a good father before he was well into adulthood, and by then it was too late for him to ever completely believe that it was possible for a good father to even exist. He knew intellectually that Joyce had to have some male counterparts out there somewhere, and some of the fathers he'd met may have qualified for that, but he could never silence the voice in the back of his mind that kept repeating that good fathers didn't exist. Goddess knew that he didn't qualify as either a good father or a good mother, and neither had Buffy, and much as he'd like to say otherwise, neither had any of the other parents he'd gotten to know. They had all fucked up in their own special ways. So being around parents, and especially fathers, tended to make a very special danger alarm ring in the back of his mind, one that wasn't for danger to him, but for danger to the children.

Michael was more Holy than anyone Xander had ever met, and it wasn't hard to tell that that Holiness was of the Christian variety (which was maybe a point for those structures being duplicated here, or also linked to from here, rather than simply not existing here). That God wouldn't accept a man who abused his children, and especially not to this extent. It was a point in his favor, and objectively Xander knew that he should trust the man, but he couldn't, and the longer Xander was around him the more he wanted to get as far away from as he could possibly get.

Although Harry obviously wanted them to get along and become friends, he soon slipped back into halfway thinking that Xander was a teenager and that of course he was just bored by the adults' conversation. Xander was perfectly happy letting him believe that; it was certainly a better excuse for leaving quickly than Xander's real reasons. Of course, Xander made another excuse as his publicly admitted reason for leaving, which had the benefit of being true: he had to go to work.

Work was as exhausting as usual that night, but when he was done with it he was surprised to find that Harry and Michael were still there talking. By the looks of it, Michael was giving Harry parenting tips, a thought that made Xander want to groan. Harry didn't need any parenting tips. Xander was an adult, for crying out loud, and even this body was older than any of Michael's kids. He didn't need a bedtime or restrictions on his movements or anything a parent who actually made an effort to do things right would come up with. Xander didn't need a parent. The first time around, he'd had Joyce and Giles, and that was parents enough for him. But now wasn't the time for arguing, especially when nobody had tried to lay unreasonable restrictions on him yet. Not now, when he had a blinding headache. He wasn't able to think straight now, much less make his arguments in a way that other people would understand.

Xander grunted a greeting to the two men and grabbed his usual ice pack from the ice box before he went to lay down. In the other room, he could hear their conversation start up again, but now that he'd returned and they couldn't speak about him without being heard, their conversation was clearly winding down. The sounds of their voices lulled him into sleep earlier than he'd expected to fall asleep.

***

 

 

He was back at Graduation, an old and familiar nightmare. As usual, everything was going wrong. The audience was made up of people he'd never had enough time to teach to fight, whose aim went wide and into others on their side, killing them. The vampires were turok han, reinforced by armies of demons pouring through portals. The bombs wouldn't work until somebody went in and set them off from their location, where they had no chance to escape when they went off. And the explosion was too large. It kept growing and growing. In an instant it would be at his location--

He snapped awake, pinning somebody to the floor. He was fit, a true physical fighter. One of Xander's hands, holding the other man's down, felt the calluses characteristic of a real sword fighter. His body was muscled in all the right ways to support that conclusion. He'd be a difficult enemy if he was upright and had his sword. Xander stared into his eyes, his teeth bared, ready to tear his throat out if he was kept from the knife his free hand was reaching for.

But this was no soulless demon or vampire whose eyes Xander was staring into. He was pinning a human and staring into his eyes, and that meant that it was only a matter of time before they fell into a soulgaze.

He'd been in any number of soulgazes over the years, since it was normal procedure to soulgaze people you expected to have to fight alongside, to prevent any soulgazes at unfortunate times such as during a fight. But never had he been in one like this. He could see something in it, what might as well have been small, dim shadows. But most of what he saw was The Light. It was so bright that it burned. And not a tiny little burn, either. It was like being burned alive, whole. Worse than that, maybe; Xander had been fortunate enough to avoid that particular experience. But that Light was so bright that it burned all of him, and all he felt was a pain as intense as any he had ever felt.

Eventually he became aware that he was screaming, and that was enough to snap him out of it and make him stop screaming. The pain wasn't gone, but it was less and lessening even more with every passing moment. It still wasn't lessened enough for Xander to do anything but curl up on his side--he'd fallen off of the man he'd soulgazed--and wait for it to go away.

Somewhere above him, worried voices discussed something. He felt hands occasionally on his body, which would probably be soothing if he hadn't been in so much pain that he could barely even feel anything outside of his own head right now, much less process the input. He couldn't make out what the voices were saying, either. Nothing outside of his head mattered much to him at the moment.

His mind's residents, not quite as incapacitated as he himself was, but still not well off, could do nothing but panic. What the hell had that been? A soulgaze shouldn't be able to do that to him. He'd never even *heard* of something like that happening because of a soulgaze. Even his Guests hadn't been able to do anything but writhe in pain because of it, and they were still unable to take over for him even though he was incapacitated and unable to do anything himself. It shouldn't have been possible.

It took a while for them to calm down a little and take inventory of his mental landscape. A soulgaze shouldn't be able to do anything to it, but none of the rest of the soulgaze should have been possible, either; they weren't going to take any chances, especially since Xander didn't have those nifty natural mental defenses that rebuilt themselves. Normally he'd only check it out once a month unless he had reason to suspect he had reason to be worried about it (meaning that back home he'd usually checked it at least once a week; here, it was actually once a month...and now), but he was doing it right the fuck now.

His mental defenses were shredded. Not just damaged a little bit, but completely, unsalvageably shredded by Holy energy that still clung to their remains here and there, causing further damage by its very presence. He needed to rebuild them as soon as he had the ability to, other responsibilities be damned. This was more important. Xander was a possession magnet--case in point, his Guests. The only thing keeping him from acquiring even more Guests was those shields. And he didn't have any at the moment. He was completely vulnerable. And while his Guests were happy with him and would help him try to fight off any further invasions of his mind, they were mere shadows of what they had originally been. He and his Guests would eventually manage to fight off an invader, but how much damage would it do in the meantime?

He couldn't rebuild his mental defenses now, though. He was still in pain from the soulgaze (and not just those remaining scraps of Holy energy) and the warding he'd done earlier, and his magical reserves were drained from the warding. Now, the only thing he could do was respond to the people who were still gathered over his body, as the pain finally receded enough that he could manage to interact with the real world.

"'m okay," he mumbled.

"Xander!" a voice he recognized as Harry's exclaimed too loudly. Xander's headache flared back up.

"Not so loud," he said weakly.

Harry softened his voice. "Are you alright?"

"Ouch," Xander said. "But yeah, I'll be alright."

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"Ugh," Xander said. Making his memory work was like waiting for a website to load on a computer that still used dial-up. "Um, sleeping. Got woke up. Soulgaze."

"I got that much from Michael," Harry said. "But that's not really a normal reaction to a soulgaze."

"Light," Xander explained. "Burned."

A pause. Maybe they thought he'd say more. He didn't. "Light?" Harry prompted.

He wished they'd just go away and leave him alone. He was barely functional at the moment, and continuing the conversation seemed like the hardest thing he'd ever done. "Holy," Xander managed. "Bad." There was something about that that some part of Xander knew he shouldn't have said, or had said in exactly the wrong way, but he couldn't figure out what it was at the moment. "Go 'way."

After a moment, they left, and Xander descended back into unconsciousness. At least some of the injury that had been done to him would be repaired while he was asleep. Enough for him to be able to think again when he woke up, anyway. And at this moment, that was the best he could hope for.

***

 

When Xander woke up again, he was still in bad shape. Mental defenses being destroyed wasn't something that just went away, not if you grew up on a Hellmouth and had your natural defenses and ability to even attempt to construct natural defenses destroyed by the massive amounts of energy the Hellmouth radiated. But, despite the poor shape that he was still in, he was better off than he had been when he had gone to sleep. Not that it would take much to improve upon that, but his warding headache was gone completely, and so was most of the pain from the soulgaze. All of it, actually, if he didn't count the pain from having his mental defenses destroyed. While that pain was a result of the soulgaze, it wasn't really a direct result.

He'd need to call in unable to go to work; there was no way he'd be able to do any warding like this. And was today a school day? He couldn't remember. He wasn't even sure he'd woken up at his usual time. If it was a school day, he couldn't go to school either. He wasn't setting one toe outside of these wards until he had rebuilt his mental defenses. He was too vulnerable without them. And this was one danger that even living in this world would reduce for him. There were always stray ghosts and spirits of various types floating around, unseen by most people, no matter what world it was. And Xander was very, very vulnerable to them.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Xander stepped into the living room and stopped dead. Harry and Michael were both still there, both looking worried, but Michael also looking a bit bewildered and Harry glaring at Michael. "Uh," Xander said. Their attention snapped to him, and back to full force worry. "What's up?"

"Xander, are you all right?" Harry asked.

"Mostly," Xander said with a shrug. "I've got to rebuild my mental defenses, but otherwise I'll be fine." This brought back the confusion and anger full force. "Uh, what are you guys looking like that for?"

"He destroyed your mental defenses!" Harry exclaimed.

"I have no idea how I would have done that," Michael said. "I'm sorry."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Seriously? Harry, it wasn't deliberate. Michael's just...er, I dunno what you call it here. Blessed? He's got the hand of the Christian God on him, and more than most who do. And I'm kind of allergic to Holy energy. And apparently when you're allergic you should really avoid soulgazing somebody you're allergic to, at least when what you're allergic to is such a big part of their life."

"You're...allergic to Holy energy," Harry said slowly.

"How did you know?" Michael asked.

"What, about the allergy or that you're Blessed?" Xander asked.

"Both," Harry and Michael said at the same time.

"I don't know when I first learned about the allergy. It's pretty commonly known back home that anybody who spends too much time on Hellmouths is allergic to Holy energy, and I grew up on one. And because it seems to be a sticking point for some people, I'm gonna say right now that living on a Hellmouth doesn't say anything about who you are as a person or what your beliefs are, or whatever. As to Michael being Blessed, well, my first clue was when I started itching as soon as I got close enough to him. That's enough evidence for me. It's not like I'm allergic to anything else that could possibly be here, and I don't generally start randomly itching."

"So it's just an allergic reaction to soulgazing Michael?" Harry asked, baffled.

"I assume so," Xander said. "I haven't ever tried to soulgaze somebody who's Blessed before, and I don't even know if there is anybody back home who's as Blessed as he is, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. But that's what I'm assuming it is. Nothing else makes much sense."

"That seems kind of extreme for an allergic reaction," Michael said.

"Ever seen anaphylactic shock?" Xander asked. "I'm betting it's pretty much the same thing, except with a more supernatural bent."

"But you'll be all right?" Michael asked.

"Oh, yeah," Xander said. "A bit of pain, my mental defenses getting shredded. Yeah, it's painful, and not exactly something I'd volunteer to do, but I've felt pain before, and I've had my mental defenses shredded before. It'll take me a little time to rebuild my mental defenses, before I'll be able to go out of the wards, but that's nothing I haven't done before."

"You won't be able to leave the wards?" Harry asked.

"I'm pretty much the most possessable person ever, when I don't have my mental defenses. And because I grew up in an area with so much ambient magic, my mind doesn't automatically build natural defenses, so I have to do it all the hard way."

"What do you mean about your mind not building natural defenses?"

"Well, like I said, I grew up on a Hellmouth. And when you grow up in a place with so much ambient magic, your natural shields that should have formed since birth unless something's wrong, if you live somewhere else, well, there's so much ambient magic that young kids can't build them up strong enough to manage anything useful before they get knocked down by the sheer amount of magic in the air. Now, there's a certain point by which, if you haven't managed to build up some natural mental defenses by that point, your mind just gives up. Like that learned helplessness thing, you know? Anyone who's managed it even once, their natural mental defenses continue to try to build themselves up no matter how many times they're knocked down. And that makes them really possessable unless they build artificial mental defenses. Everybody can manage the artificial defenses, but they're, well, artificial. There's no real connection to them. You can't feel when they're down or breached unless they're destroyed in a really traumatic manner. So if you don't check on them on a regular basis, you might end up with gaping holes in your defenses and no idea about them."

***

 

Building, or rebuilding in this case, mental defenses wasn't a difficult process even for beginners. It was just tedious. And here, off of the Hellmouth--and Xander was halfway certain that this area had less ambient magic than even non-Hellmouth areas of his world--the process was even easier, as he didn't have to struggle against the pressure of the ambient energy to anything near the same extent.

But it wasn't a quick process. Sure, compared to warding it was fast, but it was still hours at a stretch of doing nothing but building up his mental defenses, and that was with some help from his Guests, who by now were familiar enough with the process to be able to help, and invested enough in his wellbeing to be willing to do so. It would have taken longer without their help.

But when he was in his mind, rebuilding his defenses, the time seemed to fly even though he knew it really didn't. It seemed like he'd barely spent any time rebuilding, but when he opened his eyes with his defenses rebuilt it was with hours having passed. He hadn't been very aware of those hours, only enough to identify any threat that might appear, but he felt their effect, and the effect of everything he'd gone through in the past day, and went to sleep not long after he came out of his meditation.

When he woke up again, he was back at a hundred percent. No lasting trauma or anything; he might not have ever been through anything similar in the past, but he had gone through worse. This was barely even a point of interest in his life, now that he'd repaired the immediate damage. But he suspected that Harry, and Michael if he saw him again, would be treating him like he was made out of glass for the time being.

It was bad enough being treated like a teenager in this world. He wouldn't stand for being handled like he was going to break if he did too much. He doubted that this world even *had* anything bad enough that it could break him. And this hadn't been anything any worse than a little bit of pain and some extra work in the short term, not even caused by any malicious intent. He hoped they'd get over it quickly, otherwise they'd really start to get on his nerves.

***

 

He was right, despite how much he'd wanted to be proven wrong. Harry was acting the overprotective parent, trying to keep him from doing anything that might cause him to get hurt again—meaning anything other than going to school and coming straight back to the apartment to stay until he had to go to school again.

*"You do realize you're not actually my father, don't you?"* Xander asked. *"You don't get to tell me I can't go to work."*

"Xander, your work is wearing you down," Harry said. He still hadn't tried actually speaking Latin. "It's not good for you."

Xander snorted. *"I'm working on a huge warding project—several properties, and the wards aren't simple. It's hours every day of casting, and I've got to be careful and concentrate the whole time or else I'll end up collapsing them on accident and have to start over from the beginning. Yeah, I've got a headache the size of [place] by the time I leave work every day, but it's not like it's anything I didn't expect. And it's not like I haven't done the same, and worse, in the past."*

"You've done worse than that?" Harry asked.

*"Harry, we had apocalypses to avert a minimum of once a year back home. Yeah, I've had to put more effort into stopping some of them than a few hours of magic a night. And that's not even including that one time, in the place with the thing."*

"That one time, in the place, with the thing?" Harry echoed.

*"That's what I said,"* Xander said.

"And what exactly did you do 'that one time, in the place, with the thing'?" Harry asked.

*"I don't tell that story,"* Xander said. *"And besides, it's not that interesting anyway."*

"Well, now I'm really interested," Harry said.

*"That's too bad for you,"* Xander said. *"Because, seriously, I'm not going to tell you that story."*

It wasn't the only time they argued over it. Harry was determined to keep Xander safe from whatever dangers he imagined. Even pointing out that neither of them had expected that kind of results from soulgazing with Michael, and that Harry wouldn't have kept him safe from that, didn't change Harry's determination to protect him from the world. But he couldn't keep Xander from going to work, and eventually, gradually, his paranoia wore off. Xander could take care of himself, and that was finally sinking in to Harry.

Xander didn't delude himself into thinking that Harry's newfound...sanity, for lack of a better word, would last. He'd been through endless cycles of this back at SWCI. The realization that Xander was perfectly capable of taking care of himself only ever lasted for so long before there was another round of "let's try to keep Xander safe". But it was gone for now. He'd deal with the next wave when it came. It was the only way to stay sane.

***

 

 

Time passed, and eventually Xander came to the realization that, with no apocalypse on the horizon, he'd be able to hold Sunnydale Remembrance Day on time for once. But along with this convenience came problems borne of his situation in this universe.

Sunnydale Remembrance was originally meant to be just a day to remember Sunnydale and what was lost in its destruction. But over time, it had expanded to be closer to a Memorial Day for the supernatural war. All of SWCI and its allies, except for a minimal group required for emergencies, took the day off. The demons, vampires, and forces of darkness tended to take the day off too, because they tended to take it badly when Sunnydale Remembrance Day was interrupted by an emergency large enough for them to be called back into work. The few times Sunnydale Remembrance Day had been interrupted, they had come down on the offending demons hard enough that it had scared the entire community into giving them this one day of the year off. Sunnydale Remembrance Day was serious business.

But although it might be serious business, it wasn't necessarily serious. Many people had decided that they should use the day to celebrate the lives of those they had lost, rather than to mourn their deaths. Either way was acceptable, and there were people who did it each way. But either way, most people drank heavily on Sunnydale Remembrance day, if they celebrated it.

Xander didn't drink normally. He'd grown up with alcoholic parents, so he'd always known that it would have been easy for him to become an alcoholic too, but he'd never worried about it much until one day he'd realized that he was drinking kind of heavily. And then he'd thought back and realized that it wasn't just that one day, but almost every day for a while. He might not be as bad as his parents yet, but he was headed that direction and he'd never even realized it. And at that point, he'd stopped drinking any alcohol at all.

Maybe giving up alcohol completely had been overkill. A lot of people had thought that it was. As long as he watched how much he drank, kept it to just one or two, it was alright to drink, they said. And he could see their point. He certainly didn't stop other people from drinking, as long as it didn't interfere with their work. But he just couldn't do that, take that risk on top of all the others in his life. He could handle the risk of dying or being crippled, of being tortured or lost in some hell dimension with no way back home. But he couldn't stand the thought that maybe he was starting to be like his parents, that he'd started down that path again without realizing it. So he didn't drink, ever.

He only made on exception, and that was Sunnydale Remembrance Day. He allowed himself one day out of the year to wallow in his grief and loss and despair that they weren't managing to make the world a better place, not by much. He allowed himself that one day to drink. Heavily, as most of the people celebrating the day drank on that day. There was nothing halfhearted about the day, and he wouldn't be halfhearted in his celebration of it.

But that celebration—or wallowing, as he thought of it in the privacy of his own head—posed some unique difficulties in this reality. He was currently fourteen years old physically, and he didn't even look old enough to successfully pull off a fake ID if he got his hands on one (not that getting his hands on one would be a difficulty). He had no way to buy alcohol. And this wasn't back home, where he'd be surrounded by other members of SWCI who were also celebrating, making their drunkenness a not indefensible position thanks to the power of numbers. Here, the demons didn't call the day off from whatever evil plans they had brewing. Sure, there weren't many here who would pose a real threat even if they did decide to make trouble, and he wasn't the target here that he was back home, but _what if_ —. He was vulnerable here, and he had no safe place to drink. He couldn't drink in public, because he wasn't old enough. He couldn't drink at the apartment, because Harry was still kind of an innocent. He wouldn't drag the man into observing the darkest day of Xander's year.

His only option was John or his men. John had accepted him as an adult, and his men had followed his lead, even if it was with a certain amount of confusion. If he wanted to get drunk, they'd let him get drunk, and they could defend him from whatever threats might be out there, at least for long enough for him to get into what passed for his battle mode when he was drunk. It was a workable situation…the only question was, was it a good idea to ask your boss to guard you while you got drunk?

It wasn't a horrible idea at SWCI, but SWCI was not the same as everywhere else. SWCI placed safety over everything save apocalypses and the mission, and understood that every person in the world had to do foolish things sometimes. Doing them publicly, where other members of SWCI could see them, was no grounds for being judged. Here? Who knew? Certainly not Xander.

Probably, here, it was a bad idea to do things like that. But honestly, Xander didn't care much. He liked the job, even though--or perhaps because--it exhausted him and gave him a killer headache every day, but it was just a way to kill time. If he got fired for his one day of drinking a year, then so be it. He needed Sunnydale Remembrance day as a sort of catharsis more than he needed this job, and John and his men were the only ones Xander knew and could trust to provide at least some sort of protection for him without being as disapproving as Harry would be. And even if Harry hadn't been disapproving--though he was sure he would be--Harry wouldn't be able to easily handle the kinds of things Xander might say while he was drunk. He knew Xander had horrific nightmares already, and had been dropped a few more hints that he'd mostly ignored, but that was the extent of the knowledge of the darker parts of Xander's life.

Xander was generally a happy person. It wasn't an act or anything. He just accepted everything that his life had thrown at him, as much as he had been able to, because it was the only way he could stay sane in his life's calling. But there had been too many bad things that had happened to him, and around him, and because of him, for him to be entirely happy all of the time. The only way to survive was to let that out sometime, and that sometime was mostly on Sunnydale Remembrance Day.

He got *talkative* on Sunnydale Remembrance Day, like he wasn't usually. Sure, talkative was his usual state, and he was always social no matter what, unless he was in no condition for it at all, but long ago he'd learned that if he gave people access to unfiltered Xander when they hadn't asked for it and didn't know him as well as only a few people knew him, they were rarely happy. His life was too extreme, too insane, for most people to be able to handle it, even second hand. So normally he waited for people to ask questions before he talked, and mostly they didn't ask questions. The only time he allowed himself to speak freely without being asked any questions was on Sunnydale Remembrance Day. He tried to choose his audience carefully for it; he didn't want to cause anybody any irreparable mental damage because he needed to vent. Here, he didn't have much of a choice about his audience, so it was John or his men or Xander would have to figure out some other solution to the problems of getting hold of some liquor and somewhere he could halfway secure by himself.

As it turned out, making his arrangements wasn't much trouble at all. Although John had been surprised at first--mostly by the fact that Xander had come to him asking for security and alcohol, he thought--he had not been unwilling to provide Xander with enough alcohol to satisfy him and a safe place to drink it in. He wasn't wildly enthusiastic about it, but once the shock wore off he was intrigued by Xander's little custom, and maybe a little by the thought of what Xander might say while he was drunk.

But Sunnydale Remembrance Day wasn't now; it would only come later, after the semester was over with and it would no longer have been apocalypse season, if this world had had one. It just wouldn't be right to remember Sunnydale before the day when the town had been destroyed and the Hellmouth closed for good.

***

 

Xander's advice, no matter how accidental it had been, had turned Snake's world upside down. Give people a chance, that had been part of what he'd said. And prison might not be the best place for giving people chances, but prison was where Snake was. Xander had said that he could change his life without changing who he was--and who he was was a prisoner. If he wanted to turn over a new leaf, he'd have to do it here.

There were some people who Snake couldn't give much of a chance to. Some people he already knew would as soon kill him as look at him, and Snake wasn't Xander. He couldn't just overlook that and give them a chance to prove that they wouldn't kill him by leaving himself unprotected. But he gave them as much of a chance as he could while keeping himself safe, and he gave everybody who didn't want to kill him as much of a chance as he could make himself give them. The results were surprising in some ways, and not so surprising in others. He might have changed, but nobody else had, and all those people who hadn't changed weren't any more likely to be friendly towards him than they'd been before. They weren't any more likely to trust him. But there were some who had always been willing to be friendly if they were given the chance, and those were the surprising ones.

Snake had never been friendly. He'd never seen much of a reason to be friendly, didn't see any benefit in making friends with just any random person, if they'd even be willing to be friends with him. But even though these weren't real friendships, just prison friendships and lack of outright hostility, they were kind of nice. There was a guy there who knew Russian, who was willing to help Snake learn it and help him write his letters. Sometimes he got kind of pissed at how Snake had problems remembering which way he needed to write the letters, and in the past that wouldn't have ended up good, because Snake would have gotten pissed right back at him, but Xander had told him to give people chances. They had their own reasons for doing things, and sometimes they didn't have a damn thing to do with what Snake thought was the reason for them. Maybe it wasn't that the guy was pissed at Snake's letters, but that was just one more thing on top of something bigger, and he was taking it out on Snake.

It worked! Snake stayed calm, even though he was kind of pissed off himself because he hadn't been learning Russian for long, and it was hard enough getting the letters right in English, much less a completely different language with whole new letters. And because Snake stayed calm, he waited out the guy's anger and didn't make it into an actual fight, and when the guy calmed down he actually apologized. He apologized! To Snake! Snake couldn't remember the last time somebody had apologized to him and meant it. It was new, and made the anger go right out of Snake at the surprise. And the guy even told Snake that he knew that Snake was trying, and that it wasn't really about him.

Add as much good to the world as you can, Xander had said, that's how you balanced the scales. So Snake asked him if he wanted to talk about whatever it really was about. He didn't, not then, but it looked like Snake had managed to cheer him up a little bit, somehow. And he dove back into teaching Snake Russian, and even came up with some ways to remember which ways the letters went.

"Do you think you can come up with some of those for English letters?" Snake asked hesitantly. It was one thing to ask for help with Russian, because nobody expected him to know Russian, so he wouldn't look too stupid for not knowing it, but English? What kind of an idiot grew up in America and had problems with reading and writing English? He didn't even know what made him ask. Getting better at writing English wouldn't make the world any better a place. It wouldn't balance out his bad deeds. And if this guy told other people that he couldn't read good...well, it wouldn't be good for him.

But despite his worries, the other guy hadn't made a big deal out of it. Maybe he'd guessed about it, just from the look of Snake. He wouldn't be surprised. He was only surprised at how patient he was being, coming up with all these ways for Snake to remember what ways the letters went. Snake couldn't remember ever having a teacher who'd helped him out like this, who'd sat down and helped him figure out ways for him to remember things that were hard for him to remember. They'd all just expected him to get it right away. After a while, he'd decided that he couldn't learn from them and hadn't given them any more chances. And now here he was, with somebody he never would have given a chance before, not for anything, much less something like this, and he was passing Snake's highest dreams.

Had he been missing opportunities like this all along? But no, he didn't think that was it. There were people who never would have given him a chance, no matter how much of a chance he'd given them, no matter how nice he'd been. Those teachers back when he'd been a kid, they'd known his older brothers and they'd taken one look at him and they'd made up their minds about him, before he'd had a chance to do anything himself. He couldn't blame everything on himself, or on him having so much that needed to be balanced out. Once, he hadn't had anything to balance out. Back then, it hadn't been him not giving people chances. It had been them not giving him any chances.

But even though his Russian tutor occasionally got exasperated by him, it was never _really_ about him. Eventually he started confiding in Snake, and it turned out that there was a lot of stuff going on with his family that he couldn't do anything about because he was stuck in prison. And he didn't think that Snake was stupid—he went off on rants about Snake's education, but he never said that Snake was stupid, and definitely never that Snake was too stupid to learn, like a couple of Snake's teachers had done before he'd decided that they were right and had dropped out. Snake figured that those teachers were what he was talking about when he talked about Snake's education, about teachers who didn't bother to try to teach before they decided that students couldn't learn. And he explained that sometimes he got upset at Snake, but he knew that Snake was doing the best he could. It was just that he'd been writing English for so long, and had known Russian almost as long, so some things seemed really easy to him because of that—like learning to tie your shoes, he said. It was hard for little kids because they were just learning, but by their age most people didn't have to even think about it, and it might be frustrating to have to teach somebody something so easy over and over again. But it wasn't the kid's fault he didn't know how to tie his shoes; he'd never been taught right, and if he'd been taught before and it didn't stick, that was his teacher's fault more than it was the kid's fault.

Snake didn't think he would have accepted that so easily before. He still got angry—they both did—and in the past, Snake would have ended their arrangement a long time ago, and they'd have been lucky if it hadn't turned into an actual fight. Now, he stayed as calm as he could and hoped that Xander was right about things. He was certainly right about redemption being hard. Snake just hadn't expected it to be hard because he was having to learn a lot.

***

 

The school year ended without anything of much interest happening. Xander had ended up doing better in history than he'd expected to, thanks to some intensive tutoring by anybody he could find who knew anything about history; he'd had to put a lot of effort into convincing some of them to help him out, but he'd succeeded in the end, and their combined efforts had made him actually understand history to some extent. He'd even managed to get an A on one test, which was one more test than he'd ever expected to get an A on. It had been hard, but he'd managed it. Now there were only three more years of history to struggle through. Hopefully his strategy would work for them, too.

And then it was summer. It wasn't rational in this reality, but something in Xander relaxed. Summer meant the summer lull, when there was rarely any demonic activity of significance. It meant the end of Apocalypse Season, and the start of a time of relative safety. Here, it didn't mean any of that, of course; for all Xander knew there was actually an uptick in the amount of hostile supernatural activity in the summer here. But that meant nothing to Xander's instincts, long since attuned to the supernatural rhythms of his world. These days he could easily tell when it was, almost down to the exact day, by his instinctual reaction to things. This was his reaction to the full moon, that was his reaction to apocalypse season, and so on. They weren't as much use now that he was in this other reality where they were only minimally helpful, if they were even that. But the feelings were still there. They'd only go away if he got acclimated to this reality's rhythms, if they even went away then.

With the relaxation that came with the end of apocalypse season, the fact that Sunnydale Remembrance Day was at hand finally sunk in. It just didn't seem right, having Sunnydale Remembrance Day without an apocalypse before it, but Xander wouldn't wish an apocalypse on this world, especially with how defenseless it was. And it wasn't like Xander wasn't used to weirdness. He should feel right at home, as weird as things were these days. Instead, it was yet another reminder that this wasn't home.

This was going to be a long day of wallowing in his loss, he knew it already. Some years there was more than usual, some years there was little enough that he felt like mourning that he actually got some time to celebrate mixed in there somewhere. This year, he knew he wouldn't be celebrating. It had been half a year since he'd had anybody he could talk to on a regular basis, who wouldn't freak out at one thing he said or another. And in that half year he'd lost his entire world. It might still be there, but there was no way for Xander to get back. To him, it was as bad as if his world had been destroyed completely. His life was gone. His girls were gone, his friends were gone. His son was gone, not that he hadn't been lost to Xander years ago. His boyfriend was gone. He had a lot to drink about.

He showed up at John's door early. Earlier than John had expected him, he thought, but John took one look at him and decided not to say anything. Fortunately, if there was one thing you could say about John Marcone, it was that he was perceptive. Xander had been doing his best to occupy his mind and not think about everything he'd lost, but now was the time to let it all out, one way or another. Whether that meant talking about it or crying into his drink, Xander didn't care. Either way, it would be out of him, at least enough that he could concentrate on other things for a while longer.

***

 

Xander woke up the next day with a hangover, no memory of the previous day, and his pictures strewn around him. John had apparently decided not to join him (or hadn't tried to match his drinking), as he wasn't lying passed out somewhere in the room.

Idly, Xander wondered how much he'd told John. He didn't really care; it wasn't like he had secrets in his mind that could mean the end of the world in the wrong hands (well, okay, not many of them then. And John's hands were not the wrong ones.), only personal secrets that couldn't possibly hurt anybody other than him in this world. Getting his feelings hurt? That wasn't something that Xander worried much about. And while there were a lot of beings who would be glad to do anything they could to hurt Xander in any way, he didn't think that John was one of them. John didn't do much of anything without a reason, and more often reasons plural, and he didn't have one to hurt Xander, at least not any rational one. No, the only consequences of this would be his catharsis and whatever mental scarring John got from it.

Xander had, on occasion, broken a few people who had tried to be his sounding board. Some people were smart enough to get out of that position before it was too late, and a very few could actually stand to be subjected to unfiltered Xander, but even among SWCI there were few who could stand to listen to Xander's views of life, the universe, and everything when he went on at length. He'd learned to keep a filter on his opinions, because making people run away or have mental breakdowns was really not in SWCI's best interests, and only let them out unfiltered around those people he knew could take them. He would have prevented a few more problems if he hadn't automatically assumed that anybody he was dating and serious about was able to stand it.

But he had a feeling about John. Sure, he wasn't typically SWCI material, but SWCI was a diverse place and Xander was sure he would have found a place to fit in, no matter how different he was from the rest of Xander's band of lunatics and misfits. And that gave him a feeling of hope, because outside of SWCI and their allies (who were SWCI in all but name…and technically commanding officer, employer…you get the idea), there weren't many people who stood a chance of being able to handle him. The only one Xander had ever been able to find was Marcie, and she would have fit in well at SWCI if he'd ever been able to talk her into joining. There was no SWCI here, of course, but John would have been a good member if there had been a SWCI.

***

 

 

 

All good things had to come to an end eventually. Much as Xander had been enjoying the extra time to hang out with his friends, summer break had to end eventually, and the kids and him all went back to school. It had been decided that Xander didn't have to take any more science, math, or English classes, as he'd both tested out of them and proven that his test results weren't a fluke by taking the classes and passing them with flying colors the previous year, so he had almost more space in his schedule than he knew what to do with it.

This year it wasn't a problem. One of those spaces was taken up by the first semester of freshman history, since he certainly didn't know that well enough to test out of it (he was taking sophomore history at the same time), and he'd only done the second semester last year. The rest of his schedule was filled up by other classes he had to get credit for. But in the future? Three classes every year were a lot for him to not have to take. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd do. The school was large enough to have a good selection of classes available, but there weren't that many of them that wouldn't bore him out of his mind, one way or another.

He'd started to look into it already, because this was kind of like getting a whole week's worth of notice about an apocalypse: you'd be an idiot to use the time not to do some research. He had choices, but they weren't good ones. He could keep on taking random electives, hours of gym a day or something. He could do co-op, which wasn't that bad of an idea on the surface—but he refused to work two jobs, and making his arrangement with John official would mean Harry would find out about it...and Harry didn't really like criminals or breaking the law when it wasn't absolutely necessary. There were some professional training options, but none of them sounded interesting or relevant other than the medical one—and he was already beyond the level they taught to in the program thanks to SWCI's efforts to keep people from dying through whatever education they could cram into them (not that having a son who was determined to be a doctor from the time he could speak had hurt).

Really, the best option was dual enrollment, going to some college classes while still going to high school. At least there would be more options there than at the high school, even if most of the fun ones weren't available without taking the prerequisites. And while he'd never personally been to college, he knew that their classes were more similar to SWCI classes than to high school classes, which might make it easier for him to do well in them. He didn't particularly want to learn anything taught at a college, but he'd been taking classes he didn't want to take for centuries. He could stand a bit of unnecessary and unwanted class time. The only problem was, he didn't know if he could manage to do it, at least without letting Harry get a much better idea of his financial situation.

He wouldn't have minded Harry knowing his financial situation—would, in fact, be perfectly happy to give Harry all his wages to use as he pleased (it wasn't like Xander had a better use for it)—but John paid very well. And Xander might not know much, but he did know teenagers, and teenagers simply did not get jobs that paid that well unless there was something fishy was going on—even somebody as inexperienced with teenagers as Harry was would know that. And if Xander had somehow managed to actually find a legitimate job that paid this well, that Harry wouldn't object to, Xander wouldn't have a problem giving him all his money then either. But even if he wasn't doing anything illegal himself, the very fact that he was working for John Marcone, of all people, was fishy in and of itself. And it went back to that old "don't want to let Harry know about John" thing: he couldn't do it and keep the peace at the same time. And without the money from his job, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to do dual enrollment.

He'd have to think about it some more, see if he could figure out some sort of solution to his dilemma. But there was plenty of time to do that in.

***

 

 

 

In September, there was some terrorist attack in New York at the same time as one that almost took out the Pentagon. Neither of them was too impressive, except for the property damage and the fact that they'd been done by humans. Back home, they'd have made it up to page 3 of the local paper, but for some reason everybody in this reality seemed to think that it was some giant disaster.

It was bizarre. They actually had the TVs in the school on to watch it, and everybody had seemed to be transfixed by them. Xander hadn't said anything about it because, while it might not be that big of a disaster (at least by the standards of worlds that actually had disasters), the people in this world apparently universally thought that it was the worst tragedy ever. He didn't agree, obviously, but it was kind of nice to see lost human lives to be acknowledged like this for a change. His world had only ever cared this much about the Brazil Incident.

But the weirdness didn't stop that day. No, it had continued for weeks, until Xander thought that it would never end. He didn't have to put up with the worst of it, since the apartment didn't even have a TV, but he still got sick of it after a while. There were people dying every day, didn't anybody care about them instead of the ones who were already dead? What had happened to the usually short-lived attention span of people?

It wasn't an apocalypse, not even a mini-apocalypse, and there hadn't been that many people killed. Xander would never understand why everybody felt so strongly about it.

***

 

 

 

October was mildly interesting. Xander ran into a few ghosts—completely by accident! . . . well, mostly. He hadn't specifically been trying to find them, but he'd noticed an uptick in deaths in a few areas of the city, so he'd made a point to swing by those points on his patrols of the city when he actually had the time to patrol.

Something was riling the ghosts of the city up, making them more agitated than they usually were. And Xander didn't think it was natural. Not with as many ghosts as were upset, or just how upset they were. He spread the word to the rest of the supernatural community that he was in contact with. It wouldn't do for somebody think that just because a ghost had been calm in the past, that they'd still be safe now. And most of the practitioners in this city weren't strong enough to deal with a ghost that was suddenly and unexpectedly hostile.

He didn't have to bring the subject up with Harry. With the way he and Michael had started to go out regularly, with Harry coming back looking like he'd been in a fight and not necessarily won, he'd obviously found out himself. And the way he'd warned Xander and tried to convince him to stay inside the wards where it was safe after dark only reinforced Xander's certainty. Just to be safe, though, he'd pointed out a couple of hot spots so he'd know for sure that they were talking about the same thing—it wouldn't be good for Harry to be going after a different threat and be blindsided by this one.

He had to clear a ghost out of one of the sites he was warding before he could get on with his work—and Xander was sure that the ghost hadn't manifested there before. So not only were the ghosts getting agitated by something, but the walls that kept them out were thinning. Huh, maybe this world did have some major supernatural threats in it, somewhere.

Not that this one was a big supernatural threat, of course. This was practically child's play in comparison to the plots back home. But if this was home, this would be the opening move in some big, complicated plot—maybe for the apocalypse, if they'd started out slowly, but more likely for just a mini-apocalypse, taking over some region or killing or enslaving a nice chunk of people but not destroying the world. But just the fact that this world had something which could and would do something of this caliber, which might be small but was still more than the random monsters Harry and Bob had told him about, and did speak to a larger plot (because who had riling up ghosts as their final goal? Nobody, that's who), had Xander hopeful that there might be room in this world for him to continue his old life, as a hobby if nothing else.

The unabridged Tobin's Spirit Guide offered a few suggestions about what might rile the ghosts up—of course, the Who's Who part of the book was completely irrelevant since he was in an alternate reality, but there was a short section on other factors influencing ghosts. Most of the devices and what have you probably didn't exist in this world, but the spells, at least, were possible, and many of them had a halfway decent chance of being known here, since they'd been developed before the magical revolution had kicked off. Maybe they wouldn't exist in exactly the form they existed in his world, but half the time back home he ran into variations on the spells he knew, not exactly the same version. He was used to that kind of thing, and he wouldn't have any problem dealing with it. But dealing with pissed off ghosts, there wasn't usually enough time to figure out exactly what had been done to them and by who. He probably wouldn't figure it out before he ran into whoever was influencing them. There was nothing new in that.

***

[the rest of Grave Peril goes here]

***

 

 

 

War with the Red Court! That was the first exciting thing Xander had heard about this reality. Well, realizing that there was at least one person who made big supernatural plans was kind of exciting, but that was nothing compared to a war. True, it was a war that Xander technically wasn't a part of, but he kind of got the feeling that the Red Court wouldn't really care about the technicalities. Besides, he was living with Harry, that had to make him a target, right?

Okay, yes, it did suck that Susan was half-Turned. Even if Xander didn't like her too much, he'd never wish that kind of a fate on his worst enemy even if he was the kind of man who made wishes (that is, a stupid man). And obviously Harry was even more upset over it than Xander was (which was a no-brainer, but still), and had taken to moping about the apartment and spending every waking moment trying to find a cure. Xander even gave him a hand, when he had the time and energy to spare, because a cure was always good. But a war was exciting, at least. Maybe he'd get to see some action around here, finally.

Whether because of this universe or because he hadn't lived through enough to learn how to keep up his forward momentum, Harry had fallen apart because of Susan's Turning and departure. He wasn't working, he wasn't leaving the apartment any more than necessary...he wasn't even keeping his hygiene up. If Xander hadn't been there to pay the bills and remind Harry to eat, sleep, and take a shower at least once a week, he wasn't sure what would have happened to Harry. There definitely wasn't enough in Harry's bank account for him to have kept paying the rent on his office and the apartment, if Xander hadn't stepped in with his own money. Harry was too out of it to notice or care where Xander got so much money from.

Harry's friends kept checking in on him, despite the attitude he'd started copping. He didn't want to do anything other than look for a cure. Never mind how many people had searched for one over the years and failed, he was determined to find the cure in the next few months or die trying...emphasis on the die trying part, as far as any of his friends could tell. Xander smoothed over what ruffled feathers he could, and provided a friendly ear for venting about Harry.

"How can you stand it?" Karrin asked, looking like she was about one second away from tearing her hair out by the roots. "He's just so...Ugh! And you're here all the time! I can only stand him in small doses most of the time, never mind now!"

Xander shrugged. "I'm used to it, I guess."

"Sure, you're used to normal Harry, but how he's acting now?"

"I used to ride herd on a bunch of very colorful personalities, of all descriptions. Harry's only one person. He doesn't really measure up to the kinds of personality issues I used to deal with on a daily basis." Realizing what he'd said, Xander backpedaled. "Not that I ever minded dealing with any of them! I loved it. But they did kind of tend to drive other people off, and the personality conflicts were the stuff of legends. It wouldn't matter who he was, Harry couldn't measure up to them. Even if we'd lived in times of peace, not that those ever existed back home. But you add in a war that had been going on since humans first started out and that will probably continue until the world's finally destroyed for good, and it kind of tends to magnify personality traits and interpersonal conflicts. Plus, you've got to realize that we had at least one situation of similar emotional magnitude a week, probably closer to one a day. Spread out among a lot of people, true, but still, you learn how to deal with other people's grief after a while."

"You're used to it? I don't think I'd want to have the life you used to live."

"That's what my only friend who wasn't involved in it used to say," Xander said with a fond smile.

"You had a friend who wasn't mixed up in that? What did he do?"

"She was an assassin for the government. Well, and occasionally she did some spy work, but it wasn't her specialty. And it's kind of hard to do the usual spy things when you can't actually talk to people and have to hope they'll say what you want to hear."

"She couldn't talk to people?"

"She was stuck invisible since high school—which is why she got into the assassin business in the first place, they came in and recruited her—and a surprising number of people find it disturbing for somebody to be invisible, so it wasn't an asset in getting people to talk to her."

She blinked forcefully. "She was invisible...and she wasn't involved in your supernatural...thing?"

"What, just because somebody's invisible they have to like stopping apocalypses?" Xander asked rhetorically. "And besides, the invisibility isn't much use against demons that can tell where you are just as easily by scent or body temperature, or whatever."

"I guess I can see that. And she didn't want anything to do with your people?"

"Nope," Xander said. "Not unless she had to. Definitely didn't want to have to deal with them all day every day like I did. But...different strokes for different folks, right? I wouldn't want to have her life, either, even if she manages to make it work."

"So you're saying I should remember that it could always be worse?" Karrin says. "Gee, thanks. Now I'm going to have nightmares tonight."

***

 

 

 

The ward work drew to a close in January, a year after he'd begun it. He was proud of the wards he'd put up in a way that he wasn't normally happy with his wards. Back home, wards were usually put up as quickly as possible as possible, because an attack could (and often did) come at any moment. Only after the initial wards were up were they altered and refined to be better. But when wards were raised like that, they were never as good as wards that were raised in whatever time it took them to be raised, in a configuration as close to the intended configuration as possible: they always showed their origins somehow. Xander had never before had the luxury of raising large-scale wards like these at his own pace, taking as long as he needed to in order to get everything perfect the first time around so he wouldn't have to alter them until he'd come up with further refinements that literally were not available when he'd raised the initial wards. His only experience with raising wards as strong and refined as these as the initial wards had been only on the scale models. It had always been too dangerous to take the time to do it on actual buildings which would have to be wardless and undefended until he had completed the ward work.

He actually hadn't consulted John on that part of the ward work, having decided on his own. He probably should have asked what John had preferred, but he had judged that he had enough experience in this sort of matter that he didn't really need a second opinion. And what John didn't know wouldn't hurt him, anyway; the likelihood of an attack on John's properties happening in the year it had taken to raise the wards had been so small that it hadn't been worth the half second's worth of consideration he'd given it. And it had all turned out well in the end, as he had expected. If he'd been wrong about the likelihood of an attack, it wasn't like it would have taken much time to slap up some emergency wards. He'd taken a small piece from each of the sites, so he wouldn't even have to be present to do it thanks to sympathetic magic. But he hadn't had to resort to that sort of thing, as everything had gone well in the first place.

Now that his warding project was over, Xander had a lot more time to use doing other things. He did still go in to work, but now he occasionally went with John when he went out on the town, and he was able to fill the rest of his time with talking to his coworkers and doing a bit of research. He would figure out how to make bait and switch wards work one of these days, he swore it. The work would be a lot slower without the geniuses of SWCI's R&D department working on it, only him, but while he might be slower than other people, he'd get there in the end, and he had plenty of time to conduct his research in now, more than most people at SWCI could ever hope for (there were a few who, it was agreed, it was best to allow to research nearly constantly for a number of reasons, but they were a very small minority).

He'd found a research partner in Sigrun Gard. Apparently she was technically a Valkyrie, not a wizard, but Xander had never cared about labels. He wasn't a wizard, either, not by his standards. They could both do magic, and that was good enough for him. She approached things in a different way than he did, but he'd noticed that most people in this world did, so that was nothing new. And coming at an issue from multiple perspectives was a good way to get it solved faster, once they figured out how to communicate properly.

Sigrun's background in magic was more thorough than Harry's was, but regardless of her education and skill with magic, she wasn't from his world and hadn't learned most of the standard ways of describing magic from his world—standard magic notations was not the standard here. It was difficult to be precise about magic when you weren't even sure if you were talking about the same thing, when you had to define every single term and agree on a definition before you could use it freely. And some of their definitions didn't match up very well. Xander had decided to default to her terminology, since he'd be living in this world and she wouldn't be living in his, so he might as well get used to the standard terminology of this world, but that left him with some gaps in his vocabulary—he used a word to mean one thing, she used it to mean another, he started using that word with her meaning, but then what was he supposed to call the first thing? He had to make a small dictionary just to keep track of all the terminology changes he had to remember.

But once they got to a point where they could communicate, they made a decent team. Warding wasn't her forte the way it was Xander's, but she was skilled enough in it to make good suggestions and follow what he was trying. Standard magic notation was taking her a while to pick up, but she was far from the slowest person he'd ever seen, and with how she'd been taught previously it was a completely foreign way to think about magic, so he really didn't blame her for taking a while to wrap her mind around it. She'd get the hang of it eventually.

It probably didn't help that there was a vast amount of difference between the beginner lessons in standard spell notation that he'd started to give her and the complicated, messy equations for the experimental wards that he sweated over for hours at a time trying to balance. There was a huge amount of difference between the two, and the beginner equations probably didn't look like they would be of much use. And yeah, to some extent that was true. Those equations were so simple that they were worlds away from the equations that he was using. But it was like math: you had to start out learning how to add and subtract before you could get up to algebra and calculus and other advanced math. It would take a few years to get there, and probably be very difficult at some points, but if you stuck with it you could get there eventually, and you'd still be using that basic math, and you'd see that everything else was ultimately based on that basic math. It was the same thing, really.

Okay, so Sigrun was a bit skeptical about the process, but she saw how he could use the equations to figure out how to approach magic he'd never thought about before, and she decided to go along with his teaching in the hopes that he'd eventually lead her to understand how to do it herself. He'd admitted to her in the beginning that it would take a long time to learn, but he thought that it was worth it in the end, at least for anybody who had anything to do with the theoretical side of magic. Which, okay, did not seem to be of much interest to the magic practitioners of this world, but he thought that it was interesting, and she didn't seem like she was falling asleep talking about it, either.

There were a few more duties that Xander handled at work, but acting as John's magical bodyguard and doing a bit of research were the main ones, along with continuing to add Tesla Converters to technology brought within the wards. There were others who handled that as well, but he liked to do it himself sometimes. He was the one with time to kill; everybody else working for John always seemed to be busier than he was, and he didn't want to make them overworked by making them do the upgrades when he was available to do them.

***

 

 

 

With Harry as broody as he was, Xander wasn't spending much time talking to him--he didn't really want to talk to Xander. And that meant that Xander needed to find something else to do when he was at the apartment. Harry was monopolizing Bob's time, trying to find the cure, so it was up to Xander to entertain himself.

There were the books, of course, but for the most part Harry had taken sole possession of them for now anyway, so they weren't a very good option as he'd have to pry them out of Harry's grasp to be able to actually read them. So the books were out, at least when Harry was there...which was always. It wasn't a good idea to interrupt the brooding process this early on, so Xander decided to fiddle with the wards instead.

Before he'd fallen into his giant pit of broodiness, Harry had at least taken Xander's advice and changed his wards some. He was in no sort of shape to pay attention if Xander tried to teach him more about wards, so Xander didn't even try to do that. Instead, he just changed them himself.

Harry seemed like the kind of person who didn't change his wards on a whim, only if given a reason (i.e. attacked) or talked into doing it (as Xander had done). So, chances were that if anybody wanted to break in and knew Harry at all, they wouldn't be looking too hard at the wards if they thought they knew their pattern. So Xander decided to set up the wards so that, on first glance, they looked exactly the same as the wards Harry had used to have up, but were actually completely different wards that were simply disguised as the old wards. He'd actually never had a use for this type of wards before, as any ward architect worth the name changed their wards regularly and built in all sorts of tricks and everybody knew it, but he knew the theory and had done a few models of this type of wards to be sure that he had it down.

It was tricky to disguise wards. It didn't take much for it to be obvious that there was more to the wards than just the surface, first glance impression of them. Besides that, the wards would only be effective on somebody who was actually familiar with the previous ward setup, familiar enough that they wouldn't take the time and effort to be careful and check for hidden surprises. But Harry's wards weren't actually too awful, considering the world they were in, and they'd work well for concealing other wards. Between them, they'd catch both someone skilled who knew Harry's wards (and considering what Harry wouldn't say about his background, Xander was betting that he had some still living enemies who knew his wards that well), and anyone who wasn't skilled enough or careful enough to deal with that level of wards. And they wouldn't make the apartment any more of a target than it already was.

Altering wards like this, even altering somebody else's wards without permission like Xander was doing now (he was taking enough care that he doubted that Harry would even notice until he next took a look at the wards), was actually a much faster process than building wards from the ground up like he'd done for John's properties. He didn't have to build the whole skeleton of the wards and then flesh it out, merely tweak a few things here and there. But at the same time, these wards would be slightly weakened and less effective because of it. It probably wasn't something to worry about with these wards, in this world, but sometime after Harry became less broody, he was going to talk him into tearing the wards down and building new ones from the ground up. It would be the better option in the long run, at least if Harry planned to continue doing things like starting a war with the Red Court.

Then again, he wasn't sure if Harry could defend the apartment from the Red Court while he was in the process of building new wards for the apartment. It was only one site, so it wouldn't take too long, but Harry wasn't used to fighting as often as Xander was. The Red Court would surely take the wards being down as a sign that it was a good time to attack until Harry was dead, and Xander certainly wouldn't be much use fighting until the wards were done. And Harry wasn't used to getting attacked every night for weeks on end. He might not hold up well in that sort of situation at all.

Well, it was something to think about later. Harry showed no signs of snapping out of his brooding any time soon, so it was definitely an option for much later. Even if fighting a few Red Court Vampires would help him get some of those emotions out of his body, Xander had been around enough broodiness over the years to know that fighting was never enough to get rid of broodiness, at least by itself. Either Harry would continue brooding until he found his cure or Susan died, or he'd keep brooding until he was forced to do something else--most likely something that drew his attention as thoroughly as the search for the cure currently drew his attention.

There was never any way to escape from the brooders, was there? Once, Xander had thought he'd been done with brooders when Angel had left for LA, but it turned out that there were always more, ready to jump into your life as soon as there was room for them. Not all of them were as experienced as Angel had been, but there were some champion brooders out there and Xander couldn't seem to escape them even when he filled his life with people who didn't seem like they liked to brood. Where there were no brooders, the universe would make one. It was kind of depressing, like a Law of Conservation of Brooding or something. When Harry finally stopped, he'd have to watch out for whoever would be the next brooder.

***

 

 

 

This year was more enjoyable than the last had been. While Xander had never minded sleeping on the streets (he would have rented someplace, or found an alternate solution earlier, if he had minded), he had to admit that sleeping in a bed was more comfortable. And last year he'd just lost his entire universe. While he'd never get over that loss, it had now been long enough since that loss that he had a little bit of distance from it. It wasn't a gaping wound in his chest, but a tender scabbed-over one. He wasn't healed yet, but he was healing, and not losing blood faster than he could spare it.

The other bright thing about this year was the vampires. They had figured out that he lived with Harry, and was important to him, and they'd decided that he was a target too. Vampire assassination squads, what else could he want? Sure, they still came less often than assassination attempts on him had come back home, and they clearly expected less of him than they got, since they weren't too difficult to beat, but they were a bit of random excitement in his life that he'd been sorely missing.

Maybe it was a bit sick to be happy about being attacked; he knew that a lot of people would agree that it was. But when they attacked him, not only did they give him a bit of excitement on an otherwise boring day, but they also would never be attacking anybody again. It was just playing bait again, and he'd done that since he was fifteen the first time. It felt natural to do it in this body, fifteen once again. He hadn't been very good bait in a while; his face had become too famous for him to be mistaken for helpless prey. In recent times, he'd been a different kind of bait: the kind for predators who wanted to prove themselves. It was a completely different dynamic, with a different kind of fun to it.

His time was pleasantly occupied now, with his only worry being the upcoming meeting of the White Council. They couldn't do anything to him--well, he didn't know about wouldn't, as there were definitely members of the White Council with more experience and power than Harry had, but he didn't know just how much more experience and power they had. Maybe they had enough power and experience between them that they could actually do something to him if they wanted--but regardless of that, they wouldn't, not if they took their own rules seriously. They only had jurisdiction over wizards, not over normal humans like Xander. He hadn't joined their little club, and he never would--magic wasn't his life like it was for them, it was just one more tool in his toolbox. They had no jurisdiction over him.

Harry's entire life revolved around magic. He'd do all magic, and nothing but magic, if he didn't have to do all those boring things like eat and sleep and bathe. Xander had known a few people like him before, but on the whole that kind of person didn't go into SWCI. That was more the kind of person who joined the Devon Coven, or one of any number of similar groups. SWCI was full of people who may think that magic was nifty (or, for that matter, hate it with a passion), but didn't make it the sole focus of their life. If they were suddenly unable to use magic, they'd be able to carry on. They had other interests, other tools in their toolboxes. Magic was just one part of the whole to them. You couldn't be on the front lines of the war that occasionally would strip you of your powers, whatever they were, and stick to just one trick or weapon. You had to diversify to survive. The Devon Coven and others like it were civilian organizations, not major targets of anything. They could afford to be one trick ponies. They could afford to build their lives around their use of magic and their love of it.

Despite how many fights Harry got himself in, Harry was much closer to being a member of the Devon Coven than a member of SWCI in mindset. And he could afford it, mostly. Even he had realized the value of having a backup weapon that didn't depend on magic, but he'd never yet had any reason to not build his life around magic. He was on the front lines of a war now. No matter how small the war was by the standards of Xander's world, that was still enough reason that if he was smart he'd diversify as much as possible. Learn how to fight better without magic, that sort of thing. Whether he actually would was beyond what Xander could see.

This entire world was structured around the idea that if you did magic, that was pretty much all you did. They had to have some way to earn money, since they weren't all advertising in the phone book as wizards, but Xander had no idea what a typical magic practitioner here would do for a job, since they didn't seem to have any support or jobs for people who weren't obsessed with magic enough to join the White Council. Maybe it was just a matter of Xander's perspective. He was looking in on this from the wrong perspective, or something. There had to be some sort of group for people who used magic as only one part of their repertoire.

But this whole world was also built around secrecy: keeping arcane books out of the hands of people who weren't worthy of them, keeping knowledge from people who weren't already fully a part of the supernatural underground or the White Council, and so forth. It was immensely frustrating to be on the outside of that sort of thing, unable to get a hold of enough information to even make informed decisions. Xander had spent his life not only in a society that prized the openness of any information that could possibly be allowed into the public, but also on the inside of the groups that decided what information was safe to release and what wasn't. He'd learned things that could end the world, that could end all the worlds that existed or ever would exist, if they were ever allowed into the wrong hands. And here he could barely get a hold of the most basic information.

He couldn't even tell if it was his age or his place in this world that kept the information from him. It could be either, in this strange world that actually protected its teenagers from their own choices. Or it might just be him, some distrust of him for whatever reason. He didn't fit this world's idea of what a magic practitioner looked like or how he acted; maybe they just didn't trust him because of that. Whichever way it was, he wouldn't change himself for their sake. He was woefully uneducated about this world, true, but he could defend himself well enough even if he didn't know much about what he was defending himself from.

One thing he had managed to learn was that the Unseelie Accords, the treaty between a number of supernatural groups, were strictly a "letter of the law" document. The only thing that mattered was complying with the exact wording of what was written. The spirit of the law didn't matter even one little bit. That was completely opposite from the treaties SWCI had signed with demonic groups, and for that matter their own laws. There, the only thing that mattered was the spirit of the law. Someone could violate as much of the letter of the law as they wanted, so long as they followed the spirit of it. Xander would have to watch out for this world's letter of the law attitude. It would be easy to fall victim to it while sticking to the spirit of the law.

But despite his enjoyment of the past year, and the relative dearth of anything to be upset over, Xander still held his own private Sunnydale Remembrance Day with John watching over him. He still wasn't sure what he said to the man while he was drunk—and despite the fact that he knew that whatever he said was already in his head, he still didn't _want_ to know what he said to him—but whatever he said, either it wasn't too bad, or John really was enough of a SWCI-less SWCI member to not have an issue with it, because he didn't bring it up outside of Sunnydale Remembrance Day either. He could guess that he talked about home—he'd only been here a year and a half so far, it was nowhere close to being Xander's home yet—thanks to the pictures he woke up holding. His friends, his family, some pictures of SWCI's facilities that he hadn't even known he'd had, the group pictures which collectively had everybody from SWCI in them. His exes, which convinced him that he really didn't want to know what he'd talked about. His friends and family had taken the people he'd dated badly enough, and they'd met them themselves! How would somebody who didn't even get to meet them interpret what Xander said about them? In some cases, the bare facts of the situation sounded very bad if you didn't know the people involved.

***

 

 

 

As the days counted down to summer, the only thing worth speaking of in the supernatural community became the immanent meeting of the White Council in Chicago. It was all anybody could talk about, and there was no small amount of fear behind the words, either. The White Council was way out of the league of anybody around here other than Harry and Xander, and that was hardly a fact that the rest of the supernatural community missed. The only thing that kept them safe from the members of the White Council were the Laws and the consciences of the members of the White Council, because the people who lived here didn't have the power to fight back in any effective way. And, for one reason or another, they didn't feel like they could trust either the Laws or the morals of the White Council to keep them safe, even (or perhaps particularly) from a threat coming from the White Council itself.

The White Council hadn't executed anybody in a number of years, but there was nothing stopping them from doing it again, and who was to say that they'd even take all of the evidence into consideration? The letter of the law interpretation should keep them all safe from such an influx of powerful wizards, but when the difference in power was so great, what guarantee did they have of that fact? The White Council didn't care about anybody who wasn't powerful enough to be a member, and everybody knew it.

At least, Xander hoped, they knew they could rely on him and Harry to defend them, even if they were less certain of the likelihood of their protectors actually succeeding. And the very fact that the White Council didn't care about anybody who wasn't strong enough to be a member would keep some of the more borderline members of the community safe--they'd always be watching somebody like Harry, but they barely cared at all if mere practitioners walked close to the line of legality, as long as they didn't actually break it.

Oh yes, that type of practitioner lived in Chicago, too. They might not be anywhere near the caliber of what Xander was used to dealing with, but they were here. And they might not have technically broken any of the Laws, but that didn't make what they were doing any less morally questionable. Xander had had private chats with a few of them about the acceptability of their actions. It was a bit harder to make himself appear intimidating when he couldn't flip up his eyepatch and show off his empty socket, and his reputation didn't precede him, but he still remembered how to do it. There would always be some people who skated the line between legal and illegal, but he'd managed to scare a few straight, at least.

Xander kind of wondered what the White Council was like. They kind of sounded like a mix of the Devon Coven and the old Watchers: real stick in the mud types who wouldn't lift a finger unless it was their own asses on the line (and not all the time even then), and who had their priorities really straight...which was a good thing unless you weren't one of them, since they mostly only cared about their own members and their own interests, not about little things like apocalypses and genocides.

Okay, so maybe Xander needed to stop thinking about the White Council until he actually had to deal with them in person. Just because he'd heard things...lots of things...about the organization that he didn't like, didn't mean that it was actually a bad organization. Maybe all the rumors were just rumors, not a bit of truth to them. He couldn't know until he assessed them personally, because nobody else around here knew personally except for Harry...and asking Harry anything right now was so not a good idea.

Xander wasn't likely to have the chance to assess them in person. He wasn't a wizard, after all, and he wouldn't be going to the meeting (not that it sounded interesting at all...meetings about a war. What was wrong with these people?), so unless he ran into members of the White Council wandering around in public he wouldn't run into any of them at all.

***

 

 

 

Of course, Xander should have guessed that as soon as he thought that, he'd run into a wizard of the White Council wandering around in public. It was really easy to spot him, too: the robe and hood thing he was wearing weren't exactly the subtlest thing a wizard could wear. He supposed it could have been worse, somehow, but aside from a wizard hat, he couldn't think what would actually be worse. Maybe flying around on a broomstick or something.

The muggles probably thought it was some sort of religious clothing, or just that he was foreign and hadn't bought American clothes. It could be passed off as that, sort of, and if you didn't know that there were really wizards then it would seem like a more logical explanation--either that, or a costume party or LARPing or something.

Xander was just about to pass him by, as he didn't have any real reason to talk to a member of the White Council other than pure curiosity, when he realized that he knew that man. It wasn't just his height or clothing (distinctive as the clothes were, Xander had dealt with people with so many different fashion senses that even the weird fashions had started to blur together after a while), he actually knew that man.

"Holy shit!" He exclaimed. "Rashid, right?"

The wizard turned towards him and he saw that he was right--it was Rashid. Of all the people for him to run into in this universe, Rashid was . . . well, to be honest he wasn't all that surprising. Xander had known he was from another universe, and that he'd gone back home as soon as he'd been able to. There were a lot of people who it would have been stranger to see here. But he hadn't expected to see Rashid again at all, so it was kind of a surprise to see him here.

"Do I know you?" Rashid asked.

Oh, right, the whole deaging thing. "The last time you saw me, I was older, with an eyepatch and a cane . . . and also, it was in a completely different reality," he said, wondering if Rashid would remember him with that little detail.

Rashid stared at him for so long that he was sure that he had no idea who Xander was. But then his face broke into a grin. "Xander, what are you doing here? I thought you lived in a different reality. And how did you get to be so young?"

"Meh, portal," Xander explained. "Happens all the time, but in this case I'm pretty much stuck here, because otherwise there's all sorts of badness. As for the deaging, that was an accident. Also something I can't change."

"You're just accepting them? That doesn't sound like you."

"Sure, I'll do a lot to fix what's wrong, but going back home would probably mean my Earth would be destroyed. And trying to reverse the deaging would mean arguing with this planet. And since it's got enough power to squash me like a bug if it feels like it, I'm playing it safe and not arguing with it. Besides, it's kind of nice to not have all the aches and pains that come with age, and having two eyes and two working legs isn't something I hate, either."

"Arguing with this planet?" Rashid blinked at that. "That's a bit unusual."

"It's decided to adopt me," Xander said. "And since all its children start out as babies, it was trying to make me a baby too, until I convinced it to stop."

"Everything you said about your life, I thought it was just because of the reality you lived in, but you're as much of a trouble magnet here as you were in that other reality."

"If only!" Xander said. "Your reality's boring me out of my mind most of the time. I'm actually doing some fairly major research--uninterrupted, even!--because I have nothing better to do. And this is after I took a job doing supernatural security. I literally had nothing to do before I went back to school and started at my job."

"You went back to school? I thought you 'weren't the college type'," Rashid said.

"I'm not," Xander protested. "I'm going to high school, not that that's any better. But I kind of need to do some things sort of official, so that Harry doesn't get in trouble with the cops or something. And also because he's not entirely convinced that I'm actually an adult."

Rashid snorted. "I spent three months with you in that other reality, when you still had grey hair. And even I'm not convinced you're an adult."

"Hey! Is that some crack about my mental maturity?" Xander demanded.

"You're the one who said it, not me," Rashid said with a faint smile on his face.

"Hmph!" Xander said as if he was insulted. "See if I help you escape from a mob next time."

"I would have made it without your help."

"You would have been barbecue without my help," Xander said. "Admit it."

". . ."

"Admit it . . ."

"Fine! I wouldn't have gotten away from that mob without your help. But it wasn't like it was all you helping me."

"Of course it wasn't," Xander said. "There was also Kathy, and Bernard, and Alise . . ."

"All right, all right! I give! You saved my life."

"Was that so hard?"

"Yes," Rashid said mock-sulkily.

"So what have you been up to since I saw you last?" Xander asked. "I'm guessing from the getup that you're on this White Council I've heard so much about."

"Yes," Rashid said. "I'm on the Senior Council, even."

"The Senior Council?" Xander asked. "I didn't get much detail about how the White Council works."

"Vote can be restricted to the Senior Council in certain circumstances, such as if there's information that can't or shouldn't be disseminated to the White Council as a whole."

"Ooh, so you're one of the bigwigs then."

Rashid shrugged. "I'm the Gatekeeper, I keep an eye on the Gates that keep the Others out."

"Uh . . . are those gates supposed to keep people from other realities out too? Because if they are, shouldn't you have known already that I was here?"

"That isn't their primary function, but yes, I should have known of your arrival. When was it?"

"About a year and a half ago now."

"That is odd," Rashid said. "There was no reason for me not to notice your arrival then. That I did not is . . . troubling."

"Wow, you really track every sparrow's fall around here," Xander said. "Back home, one visitor from another reality really wouldn't be noticeable even to the people who pay attention to that sort of thing."

"I'm sure you've heard this before, but I'm really glad that I do not live in your reality."

"Hey, my reality's awesome!" Xander defended. "I don't go around badmouthing your reality, do I?"

"My reality does not have multiple demonic invasions a year, or an apocalypse at least once a year."

"You can't count the peaceful immigrants," Xander said. "We don't have any problems with peaceful demons."

Rashid rolled his eyes. "Taking the peaceful immigrant demons out of the equation, does your reality, or does it not, have multiple demonic invasions every year?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"But nothing. Your reality is ridiculously dangerous."

"Sure, compared to here. But I'm telling you, this little activity? It's not normal. In fact, it's kind of creepy. And makes me expect to get attacked any minute. It makes it kind of hard to sleep."

"I suppose the White Council's war with the Red Court pleases you, then," Rashid said.

"Well, obviously it sucks that people are dying. But there are vampire assassins trying to kill me now! I was kind of starting to miss the frequent attempts to kill me."

"You're the only person I've ever heard of who would rather have people trying to assassinate you than to not have people trying to assassinate you."

"Makes it feel like a watered down version of home," Xander said. "What's wrong with that?"

"Everything," Rashid said darkly.

"Besides, I'm just doing my part to keep the vampire population down. Every vamp I kill is one vamp that won't kill anybody else, ever again. What's not to like about that?"

"Most people would feel upset that they have to go back to battle after such a short vacation from it."

"Yeah, well, it's not like I was forced into this life," Xander said. "I chose it. It's not just something I do, it's who I am, as much as being a wizard is who you are. You could survive without being able to use your magic, I'm sure, but I don't think you'd be unhappy to get it back, even if it came with a war with the Red Court attached to it."

"True," Rashid said, "And I understand your point. But there aren't many others who rejoice at this war's beginning."

"From what I've seen of your world, there aren't a lot of people who know how to take care of themselves," Xander said, "much less who actually fight on a regular basis. So I'm not surprised. But it's not anything I'm not used to. Life's weirder when I don't have anything to fight than it is when I do. I haven't had a single peaceful year since I was fourteen the first time around. You try living my life, and then tell me how you feel when you're not attacked randomly."

Rashid shuddered. "Try living your life? No thank you. This war is bad enough for me."

"Pff, lightweight," Xander teased.

"I have no problem with being a lightweight by your standards," Rashid said calmly, and changed the subject. "What have you been up to since you got to this reality?"

"I already told you that. High school, bleh. The teachers seem to be better than what I remember of Sunnydale High School, and none of them even seem to be demons planning to use the students as a food source or incubators for their eggs or anything, which is weird. But on the other hand, that probably means that I'm not going to get to blow up this high school in the end, which is kind of a bummer. That was the highlight of my original high school career."

"You . . . blew up your first high school? Do I even want to know?"

"The mayor was ascending to greater demonhood. We didn't have a volcano handy, so we made do with a really big bomb."

Rashid shook his head. "The more I hear about your world . . ." he trailed off, but the horror in his voice kind of said it all.

"Live fast, die young, leave a horribly mangled corpse surrounded by the bodies of your enemies, that's always been my motto," Xander said.

"Xander, you lived to an old age, especially for your chosen profession. How on earth is that your motto?"

"I kept fulfilling the 'surrounded by the bodies of your enemies' part of it, and never managed to die young," Xander explained. "I did manage the live fast thing though, I think. Two out of three is good, right?"

Rashid didn't say anything about it, just shook his head some more.

"Anyway, when I'm not going to school, or studying history because it's totally killing me--all those names and dates, and I wasn't good with history back home either, but I'm pretty sure some of those events are completely different--I'm usually working."

"You've found a job that satisfies you?"

"Sort of," Xander said. "Supernatural security. Of course, since this is your world we're talking about, not mine, there hasn't been a single attack since I started working. I had time to ward all of the properties thoroughly and properly, no cut corners at all. Took an entire year, and still no attacks. So I'm not really anticipating the wards getting tested too often. Kind of disappointing, because it means that it doesn't matter what I did, they're just as useful as no wards at all. And lately I've been doing research while I'm at work. I swear, I'm going to figure out the bait and switch ward eventually. And with all the time I have to do research in, it's probably not going to be too ridiculously long before I do it."

"The bait and switch ward? Is that the ward you were trying to work out the last time we met?"

"Yep," Xander said. "Sadly, we haven't figured it out yet."

"It's not even possible!"

"It is possible," Xander said stubbornly. "And when I've figured it out, I'm going to laugh at you. Because I'm right and you're wrong."

"You do that," Rashid said, "And then tell me how to do it."

"Sure," Xander said. "I can do that."

"In the meanwhile, do you have any wards that would be effective against the Red Court in particular?"

"Probably," Xander said. "I know a lot of different wards. And if I don't already know one that would be effective, I could probably figure one out without too much effort. Actually, I might not know one that would work against them already. Back home, we never worried too much about the vamps. They were pests, yeah, but only because there were so many of them. I mean, they were the main enemy we put the kids up against, they were so easy to kill."

"People in this world are not used to being at war," Rashid said. "They're scared, and many of them are unsure of their ability to defend themselves against an attack, or of their wards' ability to fend off the Red Court."

Xander shrugged. "Seems weird to me, but sure, I'll whip something up for you. No problem. Except...how am I supposed to tell you about it? I'd normally just do it in standard magic notation, but apparently you don't have that here. Not that *that's* much of a surprise, since Dr. Eppes only came up with it after his brother started working for one of our allies, but it does make things a bit difficult. How would you normally do this sort of thing?"

Rashid thought about it for a moment. "I think that no matter the form they took, words would always run the risk of us using differing terminology, so we should forgo writing and speech in this instance. Perhaps ward a small object and give it to me? That would be convenient for demonstrating to others."

"Sure," Xander said. "I can do that. Something small...I can probably go from zero to done on something small in about a week, and most of that's going to be just figuring out what parts will be hard to integrate with preexisting wards--I figure you'll want to point those parts out to other people."

"A week? You've been working on your bait and switch wards for years."

"Sure, but bait and switch wards are completely new. anti-Red Court wards are just a variation on wards I've done before, I'm pretty sure. Completely different things."

"If you say so."

"I do," Xander said. "Oh, that reminds me, because there was some concern that those wards I was constructing would fry all of the technology on my boss's property, are there seriously no Tesla Compensators in this world? Harry hadn't heard of them, but I figure he hasn't heard of everything, and maybe they're just more obscure here than they were back home."

"Tesla, like the inventor? I don't know much about his inventions."

Xander sighed, dejected. "Seriously? No Tesla Compensators at all? You just put up with all your technology dying on you?"

Rashid froze. "Are you saying that these Tesla Compensators prevent that?" he said slowly.

"Of course they do," Xander said. "It wasn't like my world, at least, was going to live with everything dying at the drop of a hat. And Tesla figured out how to keep things from dying way back when electricity was new."

"Are you serious?"

"Uh...yeah, of course I am. I think half the magic practitioners in my world would have died if they hadn't been able to use a computer."

"Do you know how to make these Tesla Compensators?"

"Yep. It's not that hard. Want me to teach you?"

"Yes!" Rashid jumped on the opportunity. "But now, I think I have a meeting to get to."

"Well, I'll be here. Here in the city, that is, not in this exact same spot, because I'm probably going to go back to the apartment and get started on those wards."

"That's fine," Rashid said. "The meeting is likely to take a long time. Shall we meet tomorrow?"

"Sure," Xander said. "You want to come to the dojo? I usually teach a class, and I want to see how much you've forgotten."

"You are a cruel man, Xander Harris," Rashid said. "But yes. Where is this dojo?

***

 

 

 

When Xander got back to the apartment, there was some woman trapped in the wards, swearing.

"Who are you?" Xander asked. No need to be polite with people who tried to bypass your wards, but he decided to keep the interrogation gentle anyway. Maybe she was some previously unknown to Xander friend of Harry's.

"Who are _you_?" she snarled.

"I'm Harry's roommate," Xander said. "Call me Xander."

That took the wind out of her sails a bit. "Oh," she said. "I'm Elaine. Can you...?"

"What, free you?" Xander asked. "Sure, I can. But it would be kind of stupid to free somebody who got caught trying to break through the wards."

"Harry's my _friend_!" She cried.

"And do you usually try to break into friends' apartments?" Xander asked. "Because from what I hear, that's not usually something you do to friends."

"I just wanted to wait inside," she said sulkily. "And since he had the same wards as he used to use—or at least I thought he did—I figured I'd just let myself in."

"And what, you think those wards are just there for decoration or something?" Xander asked. "Because they're not."

"Harry wouldn't mind," she protested.

"Harry's kind of an idiot," Xander explained. "So I'm sure he wouldn't. And he'll probably make me let you go as soon as he gets back. I mean, I'm trying to educate him on how the world works, but it's kind of a slow process. And I'm not going to do anything stupid until he makes me, because I'm not him."

"He won't be happy with you about this."

"Did I ever say that he would be? But Harry knows I'm paranoid, even if my totally justified paranoia hasn't rubbed off on him yet, so it's not like he's going to be surprised. Except maybe about the wards—I'm not sure he's been paying enough attention to realize that I changed them."

" _You_ did this?"

"What, you thought Harry did?" Xander asked. "He's not that good. Or subtle enough with magic to pull it off, even if he knew how camouflage wards work."

"But you're just a kid! And who would you learn it from, if you didn't learn it from Harry?"

"I know a lot of people," Harry said. "I learn things from a lot of them." Granted, it wasn't things like warding that he was learning around here, but she wouldn't know that. And every word he'd said was true.

She seemed to give up on that line of questioning. "So you're what, Harry's apprentice?"

"Uh...no," Xander said. "Where did you get a stupid idea like that?"

"You're a teenager in Harry's apartment. It's not like you're his kid. Why else would you be here?"

"Harry's my foster parent," Xander said. "The bed's more comfortable than sleeping on the street."

"Harry's your foster parent?" she said blankly. "I didn't see that one coming."

"He sees more similarities between our situations than actually exist," Xander said. "So I think he's trying to keep whatever happened to him from happening to me. I told him it wasn't necessary—I can take care of myself—but he's kind of stubborn."

While they waited for Harry to get back from the meeting, Xander offered Elaine some refreshments which she declined. They spent the rest of the time talking about nothing which might be sensitive--or not-talking, as the case may be. She was trapped in the wards, and given the general level of magical training in this world, Xander didn't expect her to be able to escape from them, but there was always the chance that she was more competent than Harry was, so he didn't dare leave her alone or start working on those wards for Rashid until he'd officially turned her over to Harry.

Of course, he didn't expect that Harry would be at all vigilant, or be wary of her personality or allegiances having changed over time, but she didn't really look like she was eager to take on the man who had caught her in the wards, and Xander was pretty sure that by now he'd managed to make his point that Harry was under his protection. She didn't seem like the kind of person who needed to get hit over the head with a brick before she got the subtext.

That didn't necessarily mean that Harry was entirely safe. Who knew what her reasons really were, if she was working for somebody who scared her more than Xander did or something. There was always something that could make a person do things that they knew would be stupid. Who knew what Elaine's was? But Xander didn't have a choice about how he handled her. She hadn't done anything worth killing her over, and his paranoia wasn't worth making Harry upset at him. It was always a bit mentally scarring to see a grown man making puppy dog eyes at you.

When Harry got home, the first thing he did was do a double take. "Elaine?" he blurted out. "What are you doing here?"

"Harry," she said, sounding kind of pissed. "I decided to drop by. Will you tell him to let me go?"

Harry hesitated. That wasn't a good sign, not with the way he seemed to think of her as a friend, and the way his chivalric instincts worked. "The last time I saw you, <how the hell did he phrase it>."

"Yes, like a thrall. Because I was one."

Harry caved. The story seemed a little thin for Xander's taste, but he had to admit that it was enough to give her a chance to prove herself...as long as nobody turned their back on her. He was betting she could pull the knife in the back routine as well as anybody. Whether she would...well, that was another question. "Xander?" Harry said, turning to him.

Xander sighed and freed her from the wards quickly enough that she wouldn't be able to tell what he'd done to free her. But he had to admit that he took a certain amount of glee from the fact that the threshold that came from the two of them living in the apartment was strong enough that she wouldn't be much good magic-wise. It wasn't up to full strength, of course, but it was getting there, and it would be good enough to keep her from doing many magic tricks.

<talkity talk talk>

The wards triggered with a warning shortly before there was a loud knock on the door. Somebody...make that two somebodies...who didn't mean well for either him or Harry (he was betting on Harry, personally) was right outside. Oh, how convenient, one of them had announced himself: a warden. Definitely here for Harry, then.

Harry and Elaine had a short conversation about it (blah blah blah, I'm scared of the Wardens) before she disappeared into Harry's bedroom to hide. Xander opened the door and ducked just in time to avoid having his face knocked on.

"Who are you?" the Warden demanded, and pushed past Xander into the apartment...which got him stuck in the wards. Of course, that just pissed him off even more, and he tried to do some spell to free himself from the wards. Xander winced involuntarily. He didn't build wards that couldn't defend themselves.

Harry seemed to have been struck dumb by the way the wards reacted to the Warden. Honestly, it was probably the best reaction he could have to the situation. Harry had a special talent for pissing people off and making situations worse, and that probably wasn't a good idea in this case.

The wards were effective for the time being, but Xander knew that they weren't built to be able to stand up to somebody with the Warden's power and presumed skill. Xander hadn't heard much about the Wardens, but they were apparently the White Council's version of cops or soldiers: a hell of a lot better trained in combat than anybody else. The Warden would get out eventually (well, unless he was killed first, and the guy was only doing his job, for crying out loud: not really a death penalty offense). Xander decided to defuse the situation before it could get to that.

"The wards really don't like uninvited guests," he said. "Sorry. Stop struggling, you're just making it worse, and I can't get you out until you calm down. Harry," he threw over his shoulder, "get the first aid kit and some ice, would you?" he glared at Harry to make it clear that no, it wasn't a question, it was an order. Snarling under his breath, Harry went off to hopefully get the requested items. The Warden hadn't stopped fighting against the wards. "I'm really not kidding about the struggling," Xander warned. "It's like those Chinese finger trap things: the more you pull, the less you're able to get free."

"How do you know so much about Dresden's wards?" the Warden demanded, stopping his struggle but still way too tense to be considered to be relaxing. Well, at least the wards would stop tightening now.

"I'm the one who configured them," Xander said. "Harry's wards were kind of crap, you know?"

"Hey!" Harry protested loudly, coming back with the first aid kit and ice. "I heard that!"

"Thanks," Xander said, taking the items Harry gave him. "Now shoo, this guy's got a mad hate on for you, he's not going to relax while you're in the room."

"But he--"

Xander rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you? I can take care of myself, really. And he doesn't have any reason to do anything to me, other than the wards thing...and I'm sure he's smart enough to realize that *if he'd just waited to be invited in*, he wouldn't be in this situation now."

Harry hesitated, reluctant, but Xander put on his own version of Resolve Face and Harry left.

"Harry's got a good heart, but he's not really the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean," Xander said to the Warden.

"He's a Lawbreaker! It's only a matter of time before he slips up again!" the Warden said.

"Hm," Xander said. "I heard that rumor. But honestly, it doesn't seem anything like Harry would do, except in self-defense."

"The Law's the Law," he growled.

"What, you guys don't even care about self-defense?" Xander asked. "I know that this isn't home, but...well, I should probably stay out of issues that aren't any of my business."

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Changing Dresden's wards? Why?"

"I live here," Xander said. "Of course I changed the wards. The ones Harry put up were totally inadequate."

"How do you know more about wards than Dresden does? Isn't he your master?"

Xander snorted with laughter. "Uh...no. Why would you think something like that?"

"Why else would you be here?"

"Uh...because I live here," Xander said. "Did I not just say that?"

"But if he's not your master..." the Warden's eyes widened and Xander could practically see him leaping to the wrong conclusion.

"Hey! It's not like that!" he defended. "Just because it's more comfortable to sleep on a bed than on the street, everybody thinks Harry's some sort of pedophile," he grumbled. "Well, he's not! We're just roommates...and legally, he's my foster father, but that's just a legal thing. The last thing I want is another father. It's not like the first one did a stellar job. And even if he was some sort of a creep—which he's not, by the way—I can defend myself. Wards aren't the only way I know how to defend myself."

The Warden looked convinced enough of what Xander had said: he was still skeptical, but that was because he really didn't like Harry, not because he actually thought Harry was doing that sort of thing. Which was good enough for now. It probably wouldn't be possible to get any better results for now. "So if he's not your master, who is?" the Warden asked.

"Nobody!" Xander said. "I don't do that BDSM stuff. Well, except that once. But that didn't turn out so good, so yeah..."

The warden coughed, blushing a little bit. "I meant master as in the person who's teaching you magic."

"Oh. I don't have one of those, either."

"But you have so much potential," he said. "How did you learn this ward?"

Xander shrugged. "I don't remember. Somebody taught it to me a while ago. But I'm kind of past the point where I need somebody to teach me magic."

"You're still a teenager," he said. "You shouldn't give up already."

Xander rolled his eyes. "I'm not giving up, I just already know as much as I need to know. I mean, I'm sure there's stuff I don't know, but there's not enough of it for it to make any sense for me to be taught on any sort of a regular basis."

"You can't be any older than sixteen," the Warden protested. "There's still plenty for you to learn."

"Sixteen for the second time," Xander corrected even though he didn't have any hope that the Warden would remember it. Nobody ever did. "And the first time around, I got a complete education in magical science, thank you very much. I don't really need to learn anymore."

"Magical science?" he said to himself. Xander answered anyway.

"Hey, just because your world doesn't study magic in a scientific manner doesn't mean that there aren't any realities out there that do. Because mine does, and I got a PhD in it."

"Realities?"

"What, is this such a backwater reality that you don't even know about alternate realities?" Xander asked. "Ask Rashid, he'll tell you."

"Rashid?"

"Yea tall, missing an eye, wizard. That ring a bell?"

"The Gatekeeper?"

"Uh...maybe? How should I know his titles? Oh, except he did say he was on some High Council or something."

The Warden gurgled a little and finally relaxed enough that Xander could get him free. Though it was really more of a slump of defeat than a relaxation. Well, whatever. It worked either way. Xander had him untangled in seconds, and handed him the ice pack.

"Here," he said. "That'll help a little bit. I'll bandage up where the wards got you bad. And there might be some painkillers somewhere in here." He looked skeptically at the first aid kit. It was better stocked than he expected of most people's first aid kits, but it wasn't up to SWCI's standards. It was also as disorganized as everything else in Harry's life aside from potion ingredients, looking like it was just thrown together with no rhyme or reason and then rooted through with no regard for the contents whenever Harry needed something. Xander had never worried about it before, or even thought about it—this world had so little that was harmful that it had never seemed important to do so. But he should probably take care of it one of these days. Harry obviously either had no idea how to manage a first aid kit or he didn't care, so it was up to Xander.

"I'm fine," the Warden said shortly, pulling away.

Xander frowned at him. "They're not major injuries, but it would be better if they were bandaged. You could do it yourself if you want, but bandaging your own wrists is always tricky. I just thought I'd give you a hand."

Reluctantly, the Warden let Xander take possession of one of his hands. With the ease of long practice, Xander had it wrapped in a bandage in a few seconds flat, the tape not taking much longer to apply. "You've done that before," the Warden observed.

"Yeah," Xander said. "Not that there were ever a lot of injuries exactly like these to deal with—most people are smart enough to not walk straight into the wards, you know—but we had enough kidnappings that everybody got some experience with wrist wounds like these."

"Kidnappings?"

Xander considered what he'd said. "Oh, we weren't the kidnappers. We just rescued them from the kidnappers. And a lot of the kidnap-ees were our people. So one way or another everybody got the experience. We didn't really have enough doctors to have only them taking care of the little wounds." Finishing his bandaging, he gave his standard official advice. "If you're concerned, or your wounds start oozing pus or turning funny colors or anything—I'm sure you can figure out what's normal and what isn't, especially considering you're in a dangerous line of work—go see a doctor before they get too bad to do much about. Mild painkillers as often as the bottle says you can, if you're in enough pain to use it. Don't be an idiot about wound care, or you'll make things worse and maybe get permanent damage."

"Where exactly did you get this experience?" the Warden asked.

"Back in my home reality," Xander said. "I used to be part of one of the groups that worked to prevent supernatural disasters—apocalypses, invasions of our dimension, things killing humans indiscriminately, that sort of thing."

"Apocalypses?"

"Your world apparently doesn't have many, and I haven't even heard of any here. Kind of boring in my opinion, but I guess you like it that way."

"We're at war!" the Warden protested.

"You call that a war?" Xander asked. "That's any random day, back home. And I'm not exaggerating for effect—I could literally expect vampire assassins to try to kill me on any given night back home."

"They wiped out an entire fortress the other day," he said. "Had so many of them that the place was overrun—and that was the home of the Council's foremost expert on the Red Court."

"Okay, so that's a little bit more unusual. But it's not like it's unheard of either—well, except for the vampire part of it, because vampires are too weak to manage much of anything back home. And we are constantly mobilized for war. Anytime the other side manages a big strike against us, we retaliate hard enough that they get the lesson that maybe they shouldn't try anything big against us."

"Constantly?"

"Home's technically a Major Nexus. We've got portals to and from all sorts of dimensions, and we always have. And you'd be surprised at how many of those dimensions want to destroy Earth, or take over, or use humans as a food source, or whatever nefarious plan they've come up with most recently. You can't really let your guard down in that sort of situation."

"Everybody fights in your home dimension?"

"Nah, not everybody can take it. Or wants to, for that matter. But there are enough people who can and do, to defend the dimension against whoever's decided to invade most recently."

"You were one of the people who were their support staff, then?"

"Uh, no," Xander said. "I was a fighter starting pretty much when I first learned about it, even if it took me a while to learn how to fight well."

"But you're still a teenager! You shouldn't have been on the front lines."

"First of all, I don't know what this world's obsession is with protecting teenagers from their own choices. They're old enough to know what they're getting into, by the time they're that old. And second, you obviously weren't listening earlier. I was deaged a while back. Yeah, I started fighting when I was a teenager, and I'm a teenager again now, but I lived for a while in between those events. I wasn't always a teenager."

"That's not possible."

"Seriously? That's your defense? There's no such thing as impossible. We had enough evidence of that over the years. Also, for your information, fighting on the front lines of the ongoing supernatural wars in my reality actually had a lower mortality rate than being a civilian. There kind of isn't a single place on my planet that qualifies as not on the front lines, and at least the people actively involved know how to defend themselves."

"Let's assume I believe you. Why are you staying with Dresden, then? If you're an adult, can't you take care of yourself?"

"Sure," Xander said. "But for some reason, people never believe I'm an adult, and that kind of makes it hard to do a lot of things, and I'm not just talking about driving and buying alcohol. I mean, I used to think Jack had it bad, but at least he had some people who believed him, and a lot of people are willing to convince themselves they didn't see anything that looks remotely strange. Here, it's like everybody's watching like hawks. Hawks with a really odd and disturbing obsession with me, who also want to wrap me up in cotton and protect me from the big, bad world. It's annoying. At least living with Harry gets rid of some of that."

"You could live with somebody else. With your skill with wards, I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to have you."

"I've lived here for a year and a half," Xander said. "This is home now. And it's not like I'm not giving you guys a hand with wards anyway."

"You are?"

"Sure," Xander said. "Rashid asked me to figure out something that would work for the Red Court. I figure it'll take me about a week to come up with something you guys can use."

"I see," the Warden said.

"So, was that it?" Xander asked, clearing up the scraps from bandaging the Warden. "I mean, I assume you came here for a reason. But the wards will kick back in if you try to do anything hostile towards Harry or me...and if your plan was to set him up, like I assume because of your buddy out there, first of all that's a terrible plan—constantly assuming that somebody's the bad guy is a good way to get them to become the bad guy, one way or another. And B, wards. And no matter what you think of _me_ , I know you know that you can't deal with the wards and fight Harry at the same time. Not that he'd fight you for any reason other than self-defense, but with the way you two react to each other it wouldn't be hard to convince him that it was self-defense. Three, even assuming you won and turned his body over to the Red Court, I think you'd be losing more than you think, in the long term. Yeah, Harry's not exactly a man who inspires confidence right now, and he's got some kind of squirrelly thoughts and ideas in his head, but in the long term I don't think he's an ally that you want to lose, even if you're losing him because he's dead and not because he's gone to the other side."

"He's a loose cannon with no respect for the Laws."

"He's a loose cannon with no respect for _you_ ," Xander corrected. "And honestly, I think that lack of respect is half being scared shitless and half just his normal attitude. Or less than half for each of those, I suppose, because somewhere in there is the whole reciprocal lack of respect thing: you don't respect him either. But he respects the Laws. There's probably circumstances where he'd break them—but he wouldn't do it without a really good reason, and definitely not just because he felt like it or whatever. And if you're honest, you can't say that there aren't circumstances where you wouldn't break at least one of the Laws, no matter how die-hard you are about them."

"You're just like him," the Warden said in horror.

"I'm honest," Xander said. "I've lived through enough to know that there's always at least one circumstance that would justify breaking each law, no matter what law it is. I can't ever imagine being that desperate in _this_ reality, but you never know." He stopped the Warden before he could say anything. "Look, if you want to disagree, that's fine, but at least take the time to think it through before you do. I'm not interfering in your job, or trying to talk people into breaking your Laws or anything—I think that on the whole, they're good laws that people should follow. I'm just saying, sometimes the circumstances justify the actions, no matter what the actions are."

He glared at Xander, but it was more of a "I'll come back later and prove you wrong and talk you out of your crazy thoughts" kind of a glare than a real glare. "Tell Dresden that I'll be watching," he said. "And he won't get any assistance from the White Council."

"You do realize that you sound like a stalker when you say that, right?" Xander asked. "But sure, I'll pass the message along."

"One more thing," the Warden said. "What's your name?"

"Oh, right, we didn't do introductions because of the whole wards thing," Xander said. "I'm Xander Harris. Nice to meet you, Warden...?"

"Morgan," he said. "Donald Morgan." Satisfied with that introduction, he departed through the door with a swirl of his grey cloak.

***

 

 

 

Harry was in awe of Xander's ability to deal with Donald. Xander tried to tell him it wasn't much, just keeping his calm and not being somebody that Donald had anything against, but he refused to listen. Elaine likewise seemed to think that his skill was praiseworthy, although she didn't have Harry's animosity for this particular Warden, only for Wardens in general. But it wasn't long before Elaine left and Harry retreated into the basement to consult with Bob, leaving Xander to get started on organizing the first aid kit and figuring out what else they needed for it.

He decided to build a standard SWCI first aid kit. Yeah, he'd be the only person who knew how to use it, at least until he trained Harry, and a few of the items might be a bit difficult and/or illegal to get his hands on, but it would make him feel better to have it available if he ever had a need for it. Actually, it might be a good idea to get one for work, too. John was sure to have at least one doctor on his payroll, but the whole point of a first aid kit was to provide medical help before there was any access to real medical help. And although band-aids did belong in a first aid kit, they wouldn't do much good in a real crisis, even what passed for one in this world. A SWCI-style first aid kit was probably overkill, but he didn't really believe there was such a thing as overkill. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. And a SWCI-style first aid kit would make it easy to find what he needed, without any great effort on his part.

The thing about SWCI-style first aid kits was that they were designed to have everything that could be used without an actual medical facility and bulky equipment. They were a bit light on medicines, but there weren't many that were generally used in emergency medicine anyway. Besides, with the sheer variety of people who were treated out of one of the first aid kits, there would have been no way to be sure that all medicines were effective or safe for everybody who used it. It was better to forgo whatever could be foregone, as far as that went, especially since few of the people who used the first aid kits were actual medical doctors. But everything other than medicines was in there, starting at band-aids and continuing upwards. They weren't the best choice for long term care, but they weren't intended to be anyway, and they could serve that function in a pinch.

Xander could get a hold of everything he needed one way or another, but it was embarrassing to have to shoplift or break in to some place to get a hold of the kinds of things he needed, so he'd talk to Hendricks or Sigrun about giving him a hand. If some of it was restricted by more than age, they'd know who he should talk to in order to get a hold of what he needed—some people were really dishonest, and wouldn't give you what you asked for no matter how much you paid, Xander had noticed, and in a few cases (mostly the medicines) that was a really bad idea, especially if they decided to be "funny" and substitute some street drug instead of a medicinal drug. Swapping water in for medicine wouldn't help, true, but it wouldn't actively hurt, either.

Some parts of the criminal underworld hadn't yet picked up on the fact that he was working for John. It made sense, he guessed. He'd spent the entire first year he worked for him doing nothing but the wards, which didn't exactly take him around to meet all the criminals and get to know them, and he was still keeping a somewhat low profile so that Harry wouldn't find out, but it was still kind of frustrating that they treated him like a kid—a kid that by John's rules was too young to deal with, if they didn't know who he was. He couldn't do anything without an intermediary, even though he was a part of John's criminal empire.

This world was so restrictive. And while he could remember being a teenager the first time, and he remembered that there had been restrictions placed on him back then, he couldn't remember there being this many restrictions placed on him, at least not at the age he appeared to be. And he couldn't remember the kids ever having this many restrictions placed on them, even the ones who still had families who cared about what they were doing with their lives.

***

 

 

 

Harry spent a long while running around doing who knows what, and for a while it seemed like the only thing he'd get out of it was Karrin getting injured. But wasn't that always what it looked like when you were in the middle of resolving something like this? Apparently it was an even bigger mess than Xander had known--some Sidhe knight had gotten killed, his power missing, and the result of it could definitely get apocalyptic if it wasn't handled right. So this world did have apocalypses after all, or at least one of them.

Even if apocalypses were practically unheard of in this world, at least they did them right. No prophecy this time, but in the tradition that had been long established in Xander's home dimension, there was very little time between finding out that there would be an apocalypse and the beginning of it. It was almost comforting to find that this world could do one thing, at least, right.

Harry was the first to find out about it, and he didn't waste time gathering his allies. He was reluctant to take Xander because of his age, but the Alphas were going too, and if they didn't succeed it wouldn't matter where Xander was, he'd still be screwed. And Harry needed all the help he could convince to help him.

Apparently faeries were allergic to iron and steel, which wasn't very common back in Xander's world. But while it might not have been common, it had come up often enough that Xander was fully equipped to deal with that kind of enemy. He just didn't have a full suit of armor to use. They'd talked about making them, at one point, but there hadn't been enough monsters that were allergic to it to make it worthwhile. Here, it would be, but Xander didn't know how he'd get a hold of a suit of armor that would work. All his armorers were back home, and he didn't have the tools to do it himself.

But while Xander didn't have armor that would be useful (he'd decided to go with his standard kevlar; it would provide at least a little bit of protection, even if it didn't kill or hurt whatever decided to chomp on him), he did have weapons. He had at least a dagger and a sword in every material that would work in those shapes and that at least one type of monster was known to be allergic to, as well as an assortment of other weapons. But his favorite steel weapon was his battle-axe.

He hadn't been able to use it anytime recently. In this reality, of course, there wasn't anything to use it on. Back home, he hadn't been able to use it since his leg got injured so badly. He'd needed a faster weapon to compensate for his inability to move, and while the battle-axe might be his favorite, even he had to admit that it had its drawbacks, of which its slowness was one. So this would be the first time he'd be able to use it in a while, for more than just training. And this baby was not meant for just training and looking pretty, no matter how good it was at both.

His axe got some strange looks from the Alphas, the changelings, and Harry, but nobody said anything about it. He supposed they were just glad that he'd come appropriately armed. And they didn't even see his gun and iron bullets. Actually, Xander would probably have to make more after this trip. He wasn't used to having to think about that kind of a thing on an individual level--SWCI of course made its own bullets, but that wasn't set up so that each person made their own individual bullets (unless they wanted to), but so that whoever was in charge of the armory assured that there were the correct number of bullets in store, and made more if there was a need for more. It was a bit different to have to think about how many bullets he personally had available, and to know that if he wanted more he'd have to make them himself or get one of his coworkers to get a hold of some for him. Did they even manufacture iron bullets in this reality? With the wizards' overdependence on magic over anything else, and the muggles' complete lack of knowledge about the supernatural, it seemed unlikely. On the other hand, Susan did work for a newspaper that reported on the supernatural, so somebody out there had to know about it. It didn't seem like the kind of newspaper wizards would read, so it had to be the muggles reading it, and what could they do about the supernatural other than stock up on bullets?

The battle went well. Only one death out of the people who had followed Harry, and they accomplished their goal: that was a good outcome in anybody's eyes. And the people on their side had done better than Xander had expected them to do, considering this world's usual standards for anything involving combat. For the most part, that had been more because of a combination of luck and strength than because of skill, but Xander was good with whatever worked.

The Alphas were good at being wolves. Surprisingly good. From what Xander had learned, the spell they used didn't change their minds at all, so it was all their own abilities that they were using. They hadn't been that good when Xander had first met them. It was impressive that they'd come so far in such a short time. They could be better, eventually, but Xander didn't think they'd need any help getting there. Besides, Xander wasn't as familiar with the tactics that aware werewolves used as he was with other kinds of fighting. That had always been others' responsibility, not least because some werewolves reacted to Hyena's presence and vice versa.

***

 

 

 

In the fall, Xander took driver's ed as one of his classes. He already knew how to drive, of course, but it was a required class. Sometimes it was difficult to stay awake while the other students were driving and he was supposed to be observing. No matter how they drove, the kids here didn't hold a candle to the Slayers back home. Something about their powers and instincts made Slayers universally wild drivers.

That wasn't to say that Slayers were necessarily bad or reckless drivers. Most of them were actually quite good drivers, who would never get in an accident unless they were deliberately crashing their car into an enemy. But at the same time, they all liked to drive fast and to the maximum capabilities of whatever car they were driving, which made letting a Slayer drive often a harrowing experience, unless you knew and accepted that Slayers were actually good drivers. They were like stunt drivers: they could pull off insane tricks with their driving, without doing anything that would crash the car, but it wasn't necessarily comfortable to drive with them. Compared to Slayers, everybody else drove extremely sedately.

He was running out of classes to take that interested him at all--he was down to taking art and PE repeatedly, if he didn't want to do dual enrollment--so he'd decided to risk Harry getting curious about his financial situation and do dual enrollment anyway, during the spring semester and the next year. Surely there were at least some classes at the college that would be interesting to him.

***

 

 

 

Xander shared an office with Handricks and Sigrun. None of them was forced to share, really; it wasn't as if there was any lack of space for them to work in. But none of them minded sharing, and it made coordinating John's security easier when they spent most of their time together.

Honestly, none of them really needed an office. Their jobs didn't involve doing paperwork or anything else typically done in an office, after all. But they were keeping up the polite fiction that they worked a completely normal, legal place of business. Not many believed that fiction, but they had to continue pretending.

The office was more spacious than people in their supposed positions probably could have expected at any normal place of work, but security was a priority in this line of work, and the office would have had to be a bit larger anyway due to there being three of them. One side of the room contained monitors for all of the security cameras, and whatever other electronics were involved in mundane security. There was also plenty of hidden storage on that side of the room for weapons of various sorts. They mostly kept the guns in that storage, and the rest of the weapons elsewhere in the room. A few of the more decorative (and legal) weapons hung on the walls, ready for use and serving as decoration at the same time.

Another whole wall was taken up by bookshelves. They hadn't been in this office for long, but already the shelves were almost full of books. Between them, Xander and Sigrun had quite a collection of books about magic and the supernatural, and every once in a while one of them would find another to add to the collection. Hendricks had started to bring in his textbooks for school, knowing that none of the people who mattered would mind if he studied when he didn't need to be actively on duty.

In the center of the room was a large table. They could have had desks, but they had decided that it was more convenient to have a table instead, even if it made the room look a little bit like a conference room when the table's surface was cleared. Fortunately, they so often had projects in progress, papers and arcane supplies stacked on the table ready for their work, that most of the time it was impossible to mistake the room for anything other than what it really was.

A smaller table sat in a corner of the room near an electrical outlet. The three of them each had a company laptop issued to them, and they left them there to charge. Sigrun had been born long before the invention of computers and had never been able to use one in the past, so she was still struggling to get the basics of computer use down and wasn't entirely sure she wanted to master use of the computer, but considering all of that, she was doing well. At least she had the opportunity to find out for herself if she liked computers or not. So far, though, she was best at Ebay auctions. She'd gotten a few magic books (including one that she'd thought was lost three hundred years ago) from unsuspecting muggles who had listed them online. She was getting almost disturbingly good at sniping the other bidders, but at least she hadn't gotten addicted like some people and started buying things she didn't even want. Hopefully she wouldn't get that much into it. Staging an intervention for a Valkyrie sounded like a difficult proposition.

The close proximity of the three not only meant that they had soon become close, but also that they'd begun to learn about each other's interests—not on purpose, but simply by being in the same room. Hendricks had started to learn bits and pieces about magic—not enough or in a coherent enough order to truly be considered anything like a normal education in magic, and there were undoubtedly some very large pieces of the puzzle that he was missing, but it was still about the best education he could get short of organized lessons. Xander and Sigrun ahd to do so much discussion to make sure that they were on the same page that he surely picked up a good deal of magical theory, and of course Xander was still trying to learn everything he could about the beings of this world so that was as good as getting classes in it. And Hendricks had started discussing what he was learning in his classes.

Xander had never learned much about philosophy. It had never seemed like a subject that had much relevance on the front lines of the neverending supernatural war, so he'd never really thought about it much. Besides, from what he'd heard about philosophy, it asked questions like "is there a god?" which Xander didn't want to know the answer to. But the way Hendricks talked about it, it was more about good and evil, right and wrong—the kinds of things that were discussed at great length in SWCI. They'd had mandatory ethics and morality discussion groups, even—they hadn't been kidding around about making sure that if anybody went off the deep end at SWCI, they did it knowing full well that what they were doing was not acceptable behavior. If at least some parts of philosophy were about that, it made sense for Hendricks to be so interested in it. It wasn't just what happens after we die kind of questions, it was things that were actually relavent to their jobs.

They worked for the mob, and none of them tried to pretend otherwise. And they all knew that even being involved in the legal parts of the business was kind of morally dubious. They were supporting the illegal parts of the business, even if Xander and Sigrun didn't get their hands dirty personally. Hendricks was directly involved in the parts of the business that none of them pretended were moral and legal. They each had their own reasons for doing it, and none of the three of them felt particularly morally conflicted over it, but those considerations were there in the background. It was interesting to discuss various philosophies with each other, as none of them were naive children who drew the line between good and evil so strongly that they thought that it was easy to see or even to choose between the two. And it wasn't as if Hendricks could have had such open conversations with his classmates or professors. There was a point at which it would become obvious that he wasn't just playing devil's advocate, but speaking from experience. And while not every student or professor saw everything in black and white, they probably weren't ready to deal with the perspective that came with their lives, either.

On a few occasions, Xander had seen Hendricks eyeing a few of the magic books like he planned to use them as sources for his papers, somehow. He kind of wondered how that would work—was a 600-year-old treatise on demonic possession considered to be an appropriate academic source? It was certainly old enough, and that particular one delved pretty far into the morality of it: was it wrong to kill someone who was possessed? That sort of thing. But on the other hand, it wasn't what muggles would consider to be factual. On the other other hand, it seemed like anything old enough counted as a legitimate source in academia, so it did have that going for it.

***

 

One day, John asked Xander and Sigrun if the Shroud of Turin was the real deal. They looked at each other, not sure what to say.

"It depends on what you mean," Xander temporized.

"Is it really Jesus of Nazareth's burial shroud?" Sigrun asked rhetorically. "Nobody knows for sure."

"You know I'm not exactly up to date on this world's beings and objects yet," Xander said, "So I can't say anything about that end of things. But if what you're asking is if it has the powers that the Shroud is supposed to possess . . ."

"Belief is a powerful force," Sigrun said. "And there are a lot of people who believe in the Shroud."

"So can it do what the Shroud is supposedly able to do?" Xander said. "There's a decent chance of it, at least. No guarantees or anything, of course, but short of an actual verification by somebody who knows what to look for, that's probably the best you're going to get. Why?"

"The Shroud of Turin has been stolen from <location>."

"And let me guess, you've gotten word about how to buy it if you want it," Xander said.

"Exactly so. Is it a worthwhile investment?"

"For something that might not be the real deal?" Xander asked. "It's a gamble."

"It might have the powers attributed to it, or it might just be a piece of cloth," Sigrun agreed.

"And I'm pretty sure that it's an expensive gamble," Xander said. "On the other hand, you don't seem like the kind of man who would want to buy the Shroud of Turin just for the hell of it. I'm pretty sure you have some specific purpose for it. Whatever that is, is it worth paying that much money for the hope that it's not just a worthless piece of cloth?"

It was obvious that John had hoped that they had known if the Shroud was real. They weren't telling him anything he didn't already know, as it was. They couldn't make his decision any easier to make.

***

 

 

 

John had decided to go through with the purchase, but there were some complicating factors. Members of the Church Mice, the thieves who had stolen the Shroud of Turin, had been found bloodily dead. It wasn't the Church, or the police, who had killed them, not with the kind of torture they put them through before they'd killed them. And there was no doubt in anybody's mind that they had been killed for any reason other than the Shroud of Turin. Regardless of any other factors, whoever had killed the Church Mice wasn't at all likely to just give up because the Shroud of Turin had changed hands. The entire organization was put on alert about the situation.

Men were sent out to track all of the relevant parties as soon as they set foot in the city. Not only was there the surviving Church Mouse to keep an eye on, but also a priest from the Vatican was following the trail to Chicago, and he had to be kept out of the way of the killer(s) while not being dealt with the way that John was able to deal with many of the people who made problems for him—there was a chance that he was bribable, but it wasn't a good chance, and not only was he an innocent in this matter, but also it was extremely distasteful to kill a priest, especially for just being in the way.

John actually didn't see it as just extremely distasteful. He was apparently a devout Catholic, and he wouldn't even consider killing Father Vincent. Xander wouldn't be crying about not killing an innocent, but he did think that it was an odd limit to what John was willing to do. But then again, while Xander had had to kill innocents and order them killed to prevent the end of the world, John didn't deal with those sorts of consequences to having absolute limits to what he was willing to do. Most of the time, the consequence of having morals of some description in the mob was that there was some minor loss of profit or face, which were by no means consequences John was unwilling to live with. In this case, being unwilling to kill Father Vincent didn't even carry those consequences. What would he lose if he let Father Vincent live? The only consequence of note would be the loss of the Shroud of Turin. And while John may be emotionally invested in acquiring the Shroud of Turin, he wouldn't lose much if he was unable to get a hold of it.

But as it turned out, the situation never came to the point where Father Vincent even came close to reacquiring the Shroud of Turin. He hadn't even left the airport before he was attacked. Only the fact that the watchers assigned to watch him had started following him as soon as he'd gotten off of the plane allowed them to know what had happened.

He had gotten attacked right outside of the airport by some sort of monster who looked mostly like a man, but it hadn't been any sort of normal attack, but closer to mystical biological warfare—it seemed like he'd died of diseases only minutes after he'd gotten infected by the being that had attacked him. And after he was dead, the thing that had killed him assumed his form and headed off pretending it was him. Father Vincent's watcher had elected to follow the fake Father Vincent, deciding that he was more important to keep an eye on than the corpse of the real Father Vincent.

Xander didn't recognize the creature that had killed Father Vincent—he knew of beings that shifted shape and ones that killed with disease, but none that did both—but Sigrun did.

"Denarians," she said.

"Denarians?"

"Officially, the Order of the Blackened Denarius. They're fallen angels, trapped in silver coins. When the coins are taken up by humans, the Denarians possess the humans, giving them any of a variety of powers, depending on which Denarian it is."

"Fallen angels, or at least one of them, after a Holy relic?" Xander said. "That's never a good thing. On the other hand, at least we have some fairly conclusive evidence that the Shroud of Turin is real."

"Denarians are heavy hitters," Sigrun said. "Head on, I don't know if either of us, or even both of us, could defeat even one of them. And if the Denarian isn't working alone, we're even worse off."

"What, you think John's actually going to change his mind about the Shroud of Turin?" Xander asked skeptically. "After we just got confirmation about it?"

All three of them exchanged a look, knowing that that wasn't a likely scenario at all. John wanted the Shroud of Turin. If he wasn't willing to go to a bit of trouble to acquire it in the first place, he never would have tried to get it in the first place.

"So, what do you know about these Denarians?" Xander asked. "Any specifics? Books on them?"

"They're not anything I would usually face, but..." Sigrun dropped a heavy tome down on the table. Xander recognized it as one that she'd bought on eBay. "I got this for cheap."

Xander and Hendricks moved everything on the table out of the immediate vicinity and into stacks further away. The three of them crowded around the book to look at it together.

"Ooh, pictures!" Xander said. They were the usual sketches of monsters torturing and killing people in some very painful ways. Probably not the kind of thing that most people would want to look at, but Xander had been looking at these kinds of pictures for nearly his entire life, and for almost all of that time he'd been used to eating while looking at those pictures. He didn't even gag much when he saw that kind of thing in real life, even, except for a little bit at particularly awful odors. And regardless of how disgusting the pictures tended to be, they made it a lot easier to identify monsters than just writing. Especially since a lot of people were awful at putting things into words with enough detail that you could distinguish one monster from another. It wasn't enough to just talk about how many teeth and eyes and tentacles they had, after all. There were sure to be others with exactly the same number of teeth and eyes and tentacles, just located in different places. Or different colors. Or whatever.

***

 

 

 

Harry was going on Larry Fowler today, for the money. Xander was just glad it wasn't him. Talk shows were even worse than getting ambushed by reporters. Not that Xander had gone on many talk shows—he'd fortunately been able to avoid going on most of the ones that wanted him—but he'd been forced to by the circumstances when martial law had first been declared in Cleveland, and again when the War had ended and he'd turned all the power he'd never wanted back over to the real government. And Xander hadn't even had to put up with what Harry put up with.

What Xander hadn't even realized until Harry mentioned it (although he would have, if he'd thought about it) was that although back in Xander's world all of the technology at a TV recording studio was protected with Tesla Compensators, here they weren't. So the situation was much the same for Harry as it had been for Xander taking the computer science class in his freshman year. He couldn't change the technology himself, so Harry thought that his only option was to manually hold his power in to keep it from destroying all of the cameras and microphones there.

"Here," Xander said, handing over his usual Bracelets, as they were the only ones he had that were at all subtle rather than neon orange or pink with garish patterns.

"What are these?" Harry asked.

"They're bracelets to keep your magic from frying all the technology at the studio," Xander said. "Not the most comfortable things in the world—and don't ever wear one without the other, that's a bad idea even if they do have a few safeguards built in—but they serve their purpose. You won't kill any technology if you wear them."

Harry blinked at them. "And you just have these available?"

"Well yeah, of course I do. Installing Tesla Compensators or upgrading them has kind of a high chance of killing whatever technology you're working on, if you're not careful. And if you're doing a lot of items, or you're experimenting with unshielded technology for some reason, it's best not to leave it up to chance whether you can maintain the suppression of your own magic."

"Why didn't you tell me about these before?"

Xander shrugged. "I didn't really think about it, I guess. And like I said, they're really not very comfortable to wear. You wouldn't want to wear them just for the hell of it, or really for anything short of dire need. And being on a talk show doesn't really qualify as dire need, but at least you've got the option if you want to take it."

Harry put the Bracelets on and got a very odd expression on his face. Yeah, the Bracelets took a bit of getting used to. That was pretty much the same expression that everybody got when they put the bracelets on, with variations based mostly on how much the wearer was used to relying on their magic sense. Blanks had it the mildest, and at the other end of the spectrum were people like Harry, who had been used to consciously using their magic and consequently their magic sense for most of their lives.

The Bracelets were only on for a couple of seconds before Harry tore them off again. "What was _that_?"

"The bracelets block your magic from flowing freely like it usually does," Xander said. "It's a disturbing sensation for anybody, but it's worse for you because you're used to using your magic more than the average person, even when you're not doing it consciously."

"That felt _wrong_."

"Well, yeah, of course it did. It's natural for magic to flow freely. It doesn't stop like that without intervention, which is unnatural and dangerous if you're not careful about it."

"Dangerous?" he asked in alarm.

"Don't worry about the Bracelets," Xander said soothingly. "There are all sorts of safeguards built into them—and there's a reason you wear two Bracelets, not just one, because otherwise they couldn't work safely. And those have safeguards built in so that if you just wear one Bracelet, it doesn't work at all, so you don't have to worry about that. And even on top of those safeguards, they're designed so that you can't get locked into those Bracelets, so you don't have to worry about getting trapped or anything like that."

"Getting trapped in those things!"

"They're also used as a punishment and deterrent on my world," Xander said. "Some people prove that they can't be trusted with their magic, and a few of those actually surrender. Not that there's ever very many who do surrender, but the ones who do? Once you've tried to end the world, you're not going to be trusted with being able to use your magic however you want to use it. And at that point, the choice is between the Bracelets and execution. There's no way to build a prison that can keep a hold of anybody with enough magic that they could destroy the world if they want to, and who has already proven that they want to at least to some extent. And for those people, the bracelets can't be removed except if they manage to prove themselves once again."

Harry shuddered. It was a terrible thought, even to a casual magic practitioner like Xander, but it was a much worse thought to somebody who was as thoroughly involved with magic as Harry was. To be cut off from magic as completely as the bracelets made one, for the rest of your life, was kind of horrifying to contemplate. "So which is worse, execution or wearing these things for the rest of your life?"

Xander shrugged. "It depends on who you are, I guess. The choice of punishment is left to the person being punished. And some people, knowing that that's going to be their choice, push things that much further when they're resisting arrest—basically, they're choosing execution, without having to make the choice. But there's a few who didn't realize, for whatever reason, that they're going to have to make that choice between execution and death, and surrendered, but ultimately choose execution over wearing the Bracelets for the rest of their lives. Some people choose the Bracelets, and some of those manage to prove themselves, and others live the rest of their lives in the bracelets, and some of them end up committing suicide in the end—I'm pretty sure that for most of them, wearing the bracelets all of the time was at least a factor in their choice to kill themselves or to put themselves in situations where they knew they'd be killed. So really, it depends on who you are—it's not like the Bracelets are comfortable for anybody, but some people can handle them better than other people, and you can't necessarily tell who's in which group before they have to handle it."

"But these have a safeguard against getting stuck on me?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Xander said. "When we were developing them, we were worried that somebody would use them to keep our own people from being able to use magic when they kidnapped them, which would really suck. Not that there aren't other ways for people to suppress others' magic, but the Bracelets are sort of more thorough than other methods we've heard about. The others all have limitations that can be overcome with enough determination, but the Bracelets were designed so that if they're stuck on, there's no way to defeat them from the inside. So for the normal Bracelets, we made it so that they can't be stuck on. They'll fall off if you will them off while you're wearing them. You don't even have to use your hands or anything else physical to remove them, just in case you're tied up or something and can't use your hands—although of course there is a physical way to remove them, as you've already seen."

Harry tried it out: he put them on, making that face again, and then willed them off without touching them other than with the wrists they were wrapped around. "That's very thorough."

"Yeah, we try to be as thorough as possible. Not only do we have people working on the actual design, we also have people who try to think like people on the other side, and try to figure out any and every way they can use it against people on our side. We don't catch everything, but we usually catch the worst of it. The rest of it generally involves very complicated scheming on the part of the big bads."

"Did you do that with everything?"

"Usually, yeah. I mean, if we had to come up with something at the eleventh hour and use it right away, it wouldn't get that kind of testing until the latest crisis was over with, so in that kind of situation there were usually more differences between what we first come out with and the finished product than usual, but we always tested as thoroughly as possible when there was time."

***

 

 

 

Xander didn't watch Harry's appearance on Larry Fowler, so the first he knew of what had happened was when Harry returned to the apartment with Susan, who he'd apparently run into right outside the apartment. OF course, the first Xander saw of Susan was the two of them getting hot and heavy right inside of the door.

"Uh, I'm just going to go, now," Xander said. "I'll see you later."

They pulled apart, flushed and now more than a little bit embarrassed.

"No, really, you don't have to quit on my behalf," Xander said. "I'm just not that into watching, so I'm gonna leave now."

It took Harry a while to reboot his mind, so Xander was almost out the door before Harry stopped him. "Wait!" he said. "That might not be a good idea."

"Why not?" Xander asked.

"Johnny Marcone just tried to have me assassinated."

That statement stunned Xander. John had tried to assassinate Harry? Why? And did he think that Xander wouldn't find out about it, or that he wouldn't have any problem with it? "What?" he blurted. "Why? And how do you know?"

"It was a professional hit man," Harry said. "With a silencer and everything. And I saw Cujo there too, so I know it was Marcone rather than some other scumbag."

"Cujo?"

"Marcone's right-hand man," Harry said. "Redhead built like a linebacker. Hendricks." Oh, so it was some sort of insult for Hendricks. Xander would be more pissed off at Harry for that, but apparently Hendricks had been involved in trying to kill Harry, and he hadn't told Xander, either. "I think he's after the Shroud."

"The Shroud?" Xander echoed blankly.

"Apparently the Shroud of Turin was stolen, and now it's somewhere in Chicago. I've been hired to retrieve it."

Okay, so it wasn't like John would have a moral problem with assassinating Harry, but something seemed off about the situation. If John really was trying to kill Harry, first of all he'd have to have a really good reason—he approved of the way Harry protected Chicago, even if he disapproved of...just about everything else about Harry, really; so he wouldn't kill him on a whim. And second? He knew that trying to kill Harry, even if he didn't succeed, would piss Xander off, and so did Hendricks and Sigrun. If they were really making a move on Harry, they would have already done something to neutralize Xander one way or another. So Xander was pissed off that something involving Harry and John was happening and he hadn't been told about it already, but he didn't think that it was really John trying to kill Harry, because that didn't make much sense. Something else had to be going on.

"And he's worried enough about _you_ that he'd put out a hit on you?" Xander asked skeptically. "I mean, I'm sure you're good at the detective work and all, but I'm not so sure that he'd see you as a threat, or at least not a big enough threat to put out a hit on you."

"Shooting! At me!" Harry stressed. "I don't really think it's possible to interpret that the wrong way."

Giving up on convincing Harry, Xander sighed. "Well, even if you're right, Marcone doesn't kill kids. And regardless of how long I've lived, this body is still young enough to classify as a kid by his standards. So maybe you need to be careful, but I'm safe from him."

***

 

 

 

Xander stormed into John's office. "What the hell, John?" he demanded.

"They weren't shooting at Dresden!" John defended immediately.

He looked sincere enough, and he wasn't trying to pretend that he didn't know what Xander was talking about, so Xander calmed down a little. "Yeah? Then who were they shooting at?"

"The Denarian," Hendricks said from the doorway.

"The Denarian?" Xander asked. "What the hell was Harry doing with a Denarian?"

"Getting hired, I would assume," John said dryly.

"What?"

"One of the other guests on Larry Fowler was 'Father Vincent'," Hendricks said succinctly.

"Oh," Xander said. "Oh, shit. And Harry didn't know he was anything other than some nice priest from the Vatican."

Hendricks nodded. "And we're pretty sure he got hired."

"Make that completely sure," Xander said. "Harry didn't say who hired him, but he did say that he got hired to find the Shroud of Turin."

"And since the real Father Vincent is deceased, we may be reasonably certain that he has been hired by the Denarian," John said. "As far as we have been able to determine, there are no other parties going after the Shroud of Turin."

"And of course he won't be convinced by anything we tell him, because he's already made up his mind that you're trying to kill him," Xander said. "What a mess! And since you're not taking action against the Denarian now, I'm guessing your guy lost him."

"Yes," John said. "And I'm getting the Shroud of Turin tomorrow night at the <blah>."

"Great," Xander said. "And Harry's on the case, and knows you're involved, so I can't go with you. Shit! Hendricks, Sigrun, we should strategize."

***

 

 

 

Xander happened to arrive home in time for a nicely dangerous-looking man, one who looked like he might actually have the skills to fit in at SWCI, to show up at the apartment with a little girl who was maybe seven years old. She was apparently the Archive, who knew all of human knowledge, and Harry named her Ivy.

"Interesting," Xander said. "We had a guy back home who was pretty much the same, with the knowledge of everything, but I think you guys do it in a much saner way in this universe."

"How does the Archive work in your universe?" Ivy asked.

"Well, I don't know if it's the way things usually went, but the man who was the Archive had complete amnesia about his life. He remembered everything that came with the Archive, but accessing it was a bit wonky—he didn't get access to the…er, call it ephemera, I guess…until later on. It was just books and stuff before then, not drivers licenses and all that. And he lost his ability to see in anything other than black and white, except for a few weird spots. Put all that together, and he was a very confused man for a few years, before he figured out what was really going on."

"I've been the Archive since my mother killed herself shortly after I was born," Ivy said.

Xander grimaced. "Well, that sucks. But at least you know what's going on, right?"

"I suppose," she said.

***

 

 

 

Xander was sulking. Maybe it was a bit childish, but he didn't care. Everybody else had gotten to have fun fighting against the Denarian, but he was stuck at home, unable to do a damn thing about it because anything else would either mean letting Harry know about his job, or convincing Harry to let Xander go with him. The first one was just not going to happen, and the second one would never happen. This wasn't an apocalypse or anything of that scale. Harry wasn't even calling in all of his adult allies. There was no way in hell he'd let Xander go with him.

Okay, in some part of Xander he had to admit that maybe it was for the best that he wasn't able to go. The people who were fighting with Harry were Michael and his coworkers—no, not the other carpenters, but the other Knights. Not a big deal for anybody else, maybe, but with Xander's allergy to Holy energy it was probably better that he avoided getting closer to them than he absolutely had to. It was bad enough that Harry was friends with Michael, the last thing he needed was to be around all three of the Knights of the Cross while they were flinging all of that Holy energy around. But that didn't stop him from w***ing that he could go out and do something rather than sitting at home like a damned civilian. It was boring at home, and even telling stories to Bob didn't alleviate that boredom, even if they were the most interesting stories he could remember. At least Bob liked them, anyway.

***

 

 

 

Xander sneezed when Harry finally got home. He felt like _Michael_. He hadn't—no, Xander realized that the feeling wasn't coming from Harry himself, but from the cane he was carrying.

"What's that?" Xander asked.

"Shiro's sword," Harry said.

"Well, is he going to come pick it up soon?" Xander asked hopefully.

"Shiro's dead," Harry said.

"Oh," Xander said. "So are you just keeping the sword until Michael picks it up?"

"He told me to keep it until I find the right person for it," Harry said.

"…Oh," Xander said. Crap, the sword was here to stay. And there wasn't really anything he could say to Harry that wouldn't require a lot of really awkward explanation. While an allergy to Holy energy wasn't an odd thing back home, as far as he knew it wasn't even a thing here, much less a common thing. And even Xander had to admit that for anybody who wasn't aware of and used to the effects of growing up on a Hellmouth, being allergic to Holy energy sounded kind of…fishy. Untrustworthy, at the least. Because while you could get an allergy to Holy energy by growing up on a Hellmouth, there weren't really any other good reasons to have an allergy to Holy energy. That was really more the realm of demons and other demonically-influenced beings, not really anybody on the side of good. "Um, maybe you should keep it down with Bob?" he suggested. "Just in case somebody breaks in or something."

"Sure," Harry said. Good. Xander could stand it, if it was just in the subbasement. That would be far enough away that Xander wouldn't feel the worst of it while he was on the upper level of the apartment, and if he ever had to go down there, he could stand dealing with it for that long. As it was, dormant, it wasn't even as bad as being around Michael. It would almost be like it wasn't in the apartment at all, if it was in the subbasement.

***

 

 

 

In 2004, Harry was contacted by a Brother Wang from a Tibetan monastery. Xander perked up at that. "Which Tibetan monastery?"

"Uh…I don't know," Harry said.

So Xander went with him to meet Brother Wang, in the probably insane hope that Brother Wang was from the monastery Oz was at back home. As it happened, by some strange coincidence he actually was. Xander spent a while talking to him about that fact. Apparently one of the languages he'd learned without learning the name of was Tibetan, which was kind of fortunate as Brother Wang's English was not the best in the world.

Apparently, in this world the monastery was not a werewolf sanctuary, but the home of what Brother Wang called Foo dogs, supposedly descended from Foo lions. Brother Wang wasn't entirely sure if they actually had the powers that legend ascribed to them, but he was willing to discuss what powers they were supposed to have. Apparently they were supposed to be powerful warriors for good, although obviously they didn't run into much evil to exercise their powers on while they were secluded in the monastery.

"Do any of them ever head out on their own, to put their powers to use in the world?" Xander asked. "They sound like they might be the type of dogs to do that sort of thing."

"Not usually," Brother Wang said. "We have had some few lost over the years, but mostly it is because of theft, as it is this time."

"Really? In my experience the hereditary warrior types tend to seek out situations where they can do good, regardless of what they're supposed to do, and regardless of what rules they have to break to do it."

"Foo dogs are very loyal and dutiful," Brother Wang said. "They don't usually do that sort of thing."

"Interesting," Xander said.

Their conversation continued in that vein, and Xander showed Brother Wang a few places around the city. Just because he was here to get the Foo dogs back from the thieves, didn't mean that he couldn't enjoy the city while he was there. Eventually they got word from Harry that he'd retrieved the Foo dogs, and they went to get them back into Brother Wang's possession.

When Harry arrived, Brother Wang looked at the Foo dogs, seeing if they were all in good condition. "One is missing," he said in Tibetan.

"Harry, you missed a dog," Xander told Harry in English, only so that Brother Wang could follow along to some extent.

"I retrieved all the dogs that were there," Harry said. "If they took any away before I got there, I don't know about them."

"Sorry," Xander told Brother Wang.

"Better to have some back than none," Brother Wang said, and handed an envelope of money over to Harry.

They said farewell and left Brother Wang and the Foo dogs to take their flight back to Tibet, and Harry and Xander got into the car. They were almost back to the apartment when they heard a squeak under Harry's seat. They peered down and saw a puppy there.


End file.
